


When the Stars Align Pointing the Path Home

by KaeRhio



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura (Voltron) Sucks at Dealing with Feelings, Blue Paladin Matt (Voltron), Character Death, Coran is tired of your shit Paladins, Dealing with Aftermath, Everyone likes to make mentions of a possible blossom, Gen, Give the Space Mice more love!, HUNK HAS SO MUCH ANGSTY FEELS, HUNK PROTECTION SQUAD GO, Heavy Angst, KEITH HAS FEELS!, Lion Theories, Matt is the new wise guy, Not really focused on that, PIDGE HAS ALL THE FEELS DANGIT, PROTECT THE SAMOAN BBYYYY, Possible Pairing Hints, Protect the babies, Sad Paladins, Space Uncle Coran needs more love!, Suffering, THE dad has come!, The Space Mice being Awesome, Very tired Uncle Coran, You're going in the wrong direction, also damn sad, because it's hilarious like that but, dealing with FEELINGS, paladin family, tags to be updated, turn around! turn around!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-11-21 10:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaeRhio/pseuds/KaeRhio
Summary: Quintessence is life energy; all living beings have quintessence. There are very rare cases where two or more live beings have matching quintessence or are able to resonate completely.The Lions of Voltron are war machines that run on raw quintessence, giving them the ability to self-repair and most of all, be sentient beings with personalities who choose their pilots.So, what happens when a lion’s quintessence runs dry?





	1. Protect

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been floating around fandoms and got curious with Volton. Ideas and fanfics happen.  
> So, here is my first contribution to the fandom!  
> Also: Please be advised that my updating is sporadic because I'm writing other ideas at the same time, and I have a habit of rewriting a whole bunch of them at one time. d._.b
> 
> (This work has no beta.)

**Protect**

**~*~**

 

All of Voltron’s missions of late were essentially the same. Send out a pair of paladins, patrol around Galra infested planets with distress beacons on, send the intel to the castle a few systems away, prepare for the assault on those forces, and launch said assault on those forces. Once all the Galra forces were eliminated from the planet, the Princess would swoop down to offer the Voltron Alliance to the planet’s people, have a party and off the Castle of Lions would go. A few close calls in some of those missions came to pass, some minor injuries, but the results spoke for itself. The Galra fell for the traps repeatedly, so the protocols and assault patterns never changed.

Until now.

“Shiro, we need an ETA here! Pidge and I are getting swarmed!”

**“Five minutes! Five minutes Lance, you and Pidge need to hold out until then!”**

“Quiznak!” Pidge curses as she flies a battered Green Lion into a barrel roll to dodge an ion beam. “I’m shooting this to Allura right now, because we’re in so much shit right now, LANCE TOLD YOU SO!”

**“Pidge! Mind your language!”**

“As much I enjoy rubbing it in that I can be right, now’s not the time Pidge.” Lance pants as he jerks an equally battered Blue Lion’s command controls to release a laser at Green’s pursuers. A rumble of concern prods his mind and he pets it gently. “Coran? Do you know where’s the wormhole exit point? I need to know so that Pidge and I make sure it’s in the clear before you guys get here!”

**“We should be exiting on the outer rings of Ba’lal’s asteroid belt, opposite of their red moon! I believe that is just at the border of your battle, just behind where you currently are!”**

“Thanks Coran!” Blue bites down on a fighter jet and flings it right into another, releasing an ice beam at another jet. “Ok Pidge, five minutes until cavalry gets here. Let’s hold the line!”

“Easy for them! We’re the ones who need to fly through this shit hole!” Green swerves to zap five fighter jets and whips their tail out to slice through another two. “If our oh-so _glorious_ Princess hadn’t been so fucking—”

**“Pidge!”**

“—stupid enough to believe that Galra weren’t ‘intelligent’ enough to catch on to our assault patterns after doing them so many times, we wouldn’t be in this damn position! You pointed it out and she just _fucking dismissed you_!”

Allura’s silence was telling.

“Pidge, my beloved gremlin sister-brother whom I’ve bonded with due to our outer-space circumstances,” Blue’s tail whips and curls around a fighter jet, throwing it away and blasting it to pieces with her tail blaster. “I love you like my own flesh and blood, but _please focus_!”

Lance grits his teeth as he swings Blue around to fly fluidly between the incoming fighter jets, activating her ice beam to freeze them as she flew past them. He yelps when three blasts smash into Blue’s right side, his body jerking violently to the left and head smashing onto one of the left consoles. Pidge’s yell echoes through the cockpit as he shakes his head to clear the blur in his eyes and feels a sticky wet feeling dribble down the left of his temple. With a jerk of his flight controls, Lance pulls Blue up to narrowly avoid the next ion cannon beam that burns Blue’s stomach and warning messages flash on his console.

“ _¡_ _Mierda!_ ”

**“Lance?!”**

Gripping Blue’s flight controls, Lance urges her to pull upwards, weaving through the fighter jet blasters as his eyes swipe across the battlefield. Blue growls wearily around him.

“Pidge? Tell me you have your cloaking on you little gremlin, because I can’t see you!”

“Yes, I do! And check your BLIPs man, because I should show up there!”

“ _Thank fuck_! F-Y-I, my BLIPs is down, so you’d better make sure you’re nowhere near my lasers! Now go kick their asses!”

Blue rumbles to him, worry etching at the corner of his mind. He coaxes her gently, pulling on their bond and soft blue light surrounds his body. With Blue rumbling her consent, Lance pushes the controls forward and dives into the sea of enemies, headbutting, biting, flinging and slicing through as many as they can to thin the crowd. Lance spots a ripple in the space and green lasers appear, taking out two jets by his left.

**“Pidge! Lance! Give me a status report!”**

**“Lance, buddy! What’s happening there?!”**

“Pidge’s under cloaking and I’m trying to thin out the mob!” Lance grunts as two lasers hit Blue’s hind legs, retaliating with Blue’s tail blaster. “Shiro, Blue’s at thirty-six percent power! How much longer are you guys going to take?! I don’t think Green’s feeling too hot either because I’m pretty sure the cloaking drains her faster!”

“Green’s at twenty-eight percent and dropping real fast!”

**“Three minutes! Hang in there, buddy!”**

**“Actually, it’s closer to four doboshes!”**

**“Not helping Coran!”**

A flash of bright light momentarily blinds Lance. Blinking the blur away, his breath hitches just as Pidge releases a squeak with audible tremor through the communications channel. Immediately, several voices bombard them, demanding about the changes in their situation. Lance swallows loudly, eyes wide and his hands gripping his command controls tighter. His connection with Blue breaks and the glow recedes.

“Their backup is here.” His voice whispers and the channel goes deathly silent. “…guys? Another fleet is here.”

“…Shit. T-there’s…another hundred of them…” Pidge’s whisper, higher than normal and full of fear, is achingly loud. “H-holy shit. Lance? Are we going to die?”

Shiro is shouting through the channel, pleading with them to ‘hang on’, Hunk begs them to run, Keith is demanding his lion to move faster, Coran fumbles in his words, while Allura tells them to stand strong. Lance ignores them and pings Pidge.

“Pidge…Katie.”

The channel falls silent, until an audible swallow can be heard from the speakers.

“Yea.”

“How long more until your cloak goes down?”

“Two doboshes.”

“Release the cloak to power your blasters, fire them and fall back to the wormhole exit point.” Lance sucks in a deep, shaky breath. “Retreat, and don’t look back. Whatever happens, I’m going to back you up and protect you as much as I can.”

“Ok.” Pidge swallows audibly once more, voice incredibly small. “Lance? I’m scared.”

“…So am I Pidgey. But I’m here for you ok?” Lance expels his shaky breath as Pidge makes a hum of acceptance. He reaches through his bond to Blue once more, connecting with her firmly. “Ready? Set? Go! Fall back!”

Green ripples into view, shooting sharp beams from her tail and mouth as she pulls backwards. Lance pulls his controls sharply, firing Blue’s laser to cut off many of the lasers attacking Green in her retreat. Several lasers still hit their mark, small explosions rocking Green as she turns tail to fly towards the asteroid belt. Lance thrusts Blue forward, shooting another ice beam to intercept the fighter jets rushing forward to cripple Green further. Blue grabs one, freezes it with her ice beam and viciously tosses it into a swarm of its fellow jets, her tail whips up and shoots a laser at the frozen jet, causing it to explode and envelop the incoming jets.

Blue’s cockpit flashes red. Warning messages are flashing all over the dashboard and displaying the power meter dropping fast. A terrified rumble lurks at the back of Lance’s head as he flies towards Green. He swings Blue around to shoot at their pursuers before turning back to the goal.

“Pidge! What’s your power?”

“Down to ten!”

“Shields?”

“Can’t, most of the power’s going into my thrusters and my comms is running on reserve power!”

“ _¡Joder!_ ”

**“Pidge! Lance! One minute! Come on! One minute and we’ll be there!”**

“We don’t have a minute Shiro!” Pidge screams. Green is slowing down, and the accumulated damage is visibly taking its toll. “Lance…! Lance! My systems are shutting down! Green?! Green! Come on girl!”

Her panic and terror _rips_ through the comms channel. Lance sees the lights of Green flickering and her thrusters dim, he’s almost caught up to her. The channel is exploding with shouts, melding together into a garbling mess. Lance turns Blue sharply to fend off more pursuers, but his breath hitches as he catches sight of two glowing ion cannons charging. Some lasers burn through Blue’s neck and her roar of pain rattles his mind.

“ _Pidge!!_ ” His scream rings above the garbling mess over the channel, voice higher and frantic, and Blue’s terrified roar echoes at the back of his head. He slams his flight controls forward hard, racing closer to Green, gripping his bond with Blue tightly. “ _Pidge!_ You’ve got to move!”

“I _can’t_!”

**“Ten ticks!”**

Green’s thrusters splutter out and her eyes dim. She drifts dead in space.

**“Eight ticks!”**

Blue roars, her thrusters powering to its maximum, jaws open as she inches closer to her incapacitated sister and ignores the laser fire bombarding her back, ripping through her hull.

Pidge chokes on her fear in Green’s cockpit, scrambling over her controls to scrounge up any leftover power.

**“Six ticks!”**

One ion cannon fires as Blue reaches Green. With a jerk of his controls, Blue rears her head forward and bites down on Green’s tail. With a mighty swing of her head, Blue flings Green clear of the ion beam’s way and the tear in her neck widens.

The beam smashes straight into the left side of Blue’s body, devastating her hull with a huge, sparking hole that exposes her quintessence core.

Lance garbles a pained shout as he’s rattled in the cockpit. Pidge screams.

The channel erupts with demands, questions and pleas.

Lance grasps his bond with Blue even tighter than ever as they tumble. Her entire cockpit is bathed in red with warning messages littering every console available.

Damage at eighty-five percent and climbing.

**“Three ticks!”**

From the corner of Blue’s visor, the second ion cannon glows ominously. Lance struggles to breathe as Pidge’s screams echo in his cockpit. Blue’s despair is evident when she touches his mind, but fierce protectiveness overwhelms it in a single second, and they agree through their bond.

She will protect her sister.

Lance will protect Pidge.

Their connection glows brighter than ever as Blue’s head jerks towards the commanding ships of the two fleets and opens her jaws wide.

**“Two ticks!”**

The energy collecting in Blue’s jaw glows a stunning bright blue and continues to power up even with all the lasers smashing into the rest of her hull. Her quintessence core begins to dim as her limbs begin tearing from their sockets. Lance steals a glance at the unmoving Green as she drifts closer to the projected wormhole exit.

Pidge is still screaming for him through the communications channel.  

Lance grasps onto Blue tightly as she envelops him completely.

 _‘We are trust.’_ She whispers.

‘We are faith.’ He returns as she begins to seep from his mind.

 _‘We are gentle.’_ Her grasp on their connection wavers further.

‘We are loyal.’ He releases his hold on her.

  ** _‘We are love.’_**

**“ONE TICK!”**

The command ship fires its ion cannon at him the same time Blue releases the power filled blue shot from her jaws towards the fleet. The purple beam and blue shot brush against each other as they fly straight and true, energy crackling between them and decimate any stray fighter jets in their way.

Blue completely powers down once the shot has left her jaws; her quintessence core, normally glowing vibrant blue, is left with only a dull glimmer.

Lance sucks in a trembling breath as the heat and crackle of the oncoming ion beam draws nearer and closes his eyes.

Behind his eyelids, he sees his family; both from Earth and from space.

He whispers a prayer. Pidge is still screaming.

“I love you guys.”

**“LANCE! PIDGE! WE’RE HERE!”**

The familiar blue portal winks into existence behind Green and deposits Black, Yellow and Red Lions and the Castle ship.

Just as the shot and beam nail their targets.

The blue shot smashes into the targeted command ship and a blinding blue light envelops the fleet. When the light fades, the entire fleet, both command ships and fighter jets out in the space of the planet, are frozen solid.

At the same time, the ion beam spears through Blue’s ripped hull and exits through the other side. Her entire body sparks and crackles in dead space as her damaged quintessence core suddenly glows softly in ever changing hues of blue, then in increasing intensity. Her limbs dangle precariously from their sockets, her neck ripped open and her body almost split in two.

A hush falls between the paladins as the glow from Blue’s core intensifies and an explosion of blue light blinds them.

Voice raw, pained and fearful, Pidge screams.

“LANCE!!!”


	2. White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look here, another chapter!  
> The next few chapters will be following specific characters, one character 'POV' as it is per chapter as the story continues. So certain character actions are not explainable until later (ormaybenotatall) ;)  
> I have a rough outline of the number of chapters this fanfic is going to be, but that will be subject to changes along the way :) 
> 
> Please keep all hands and feet inside the ride, and seatbelts fastened at all times.  
> Enjoy the your ride into The Feels!
> 
> (Once again, this chapter is unbeta-ed)

**White**

 

**~*~**

 

When the blue light dims, the breath of all the remaining paladins of Voltron hitches.

The Blue Lion, with her dangling limbs, split body and ripped neck, is encased in ice, drifting in space in front of them. Behind her, the two Galra fleets are likewise, frozen solid, but unlike the frosty ice encasing the Galra fleets, the ice surrounding Blue is crystal clear.

And the BLIP on Shiro’s console only reads four paladin signatures across the frozen battlefield. In the recesses of his mind, Black unleashes a pain filled roar that rings in his ears.

“No…no no no no NO!” Yellow powers forward towards the ice encased Blue, Hunk screaming in sync with Pidge. “LANCE! LANCE!”

“Sh-Shiro.” Allura’s voice trembles over the channel, as Black swerves towards the unmoving Green and Red powers forward to meet Yellow at the ice encased Blue. “I can’t-Blue Lion is-”

“SPIT IT OUT ALLURA!” Keith shouts, voice wavering as Red claws the ice block holding Blue.

“I-I can’t feel the Blue Lion!” She gasps out. “Blue Lion’s quintessence…her quintessence is gone!”

“WHAT ABOUT LANCE?!”

Shiro stills as Black continues to roar in agony. Pidge’s screams fade into sobs, as Keith and Hunk shout, scream and rage, and Allura fumbles to regain command. Shiro grips his flight controls tightly and squeezes his eyes shut. Black sends images into his mind and he flies right into Green instead of stopping just before her.

_Blue and Green standing in front of two fleets, the only dots of color against the sea of grey and black._

_Blue, limbs tearing, neck ripping, lunging forward to bite down on Green’s tail, swinging her away—_

_Blue’s quintessence core dimming alarmingly fast, then dulls to a small glimmer. Then, black._

_Blue enveloping Lance in her quintessence until the blue glow surrounding him simply vanishes into thin air._

_Blinding blue light dimming, revealing Blue’s cockpit completely filled with ice and the blue paladin, no longer bound by laws of gravity, body frozen in mid-air—_

Shiro gasps loudly as he’s jerked back into the present.

“Keith! Hunk! Tow Blue back into the castle now! Lance is still in there!”

“It’s not like he’s outside of his lion Shiro!”

“No!” Shiro shakes his head frantically, quickly maneuvering Black to grab Green. “Black just showed me Blue’s cockpit! It’s also filled with ice and Lance is stuck in there!”

“L-like…the healing pods?” Hunk whispers, a small spark of hope coloring his voice. “Lance…could be alive? Just frozen like Coran and Allura were in the cryo pods? Blue’s-Blue’s the guardian of water, right? Could she have frozen Lance to save him before—?”

“I don’t know. Hunk, I—” Shiro swallows and takes a deep breath. “I can’t say for sure. Black…Black’s _mourning_. She just showed me some images and I don’t know what she means when she showed me Blue’s cockpit. All I know is that he’s also encased in ice.”

“Then let me just use Red’s fire—”

“NO!” Shiro barks, Black roaring in time with him. “No! Keith, we don’t know what’s going to happen if you melt that ice out here. If the air pressure in the cockpit is down and Lance doesn’t have his helmet covered completely, he’ll die! Tow Blue back into the castle!”

“Pidge.” Shiro bites on his bottom lip as Pidge’s sobs continue through the channel. “Pidge. Please. I need you to talk to me ok? Are you injured?”

“Lance…! -Hic- Lance!”

He squeezes his eyes shut at her pained cry. Instead of probing her further, he sends Coran a request to be on immediate standby in the shared hanger bay and follows behind Keith and Hunk, who are gently pushing the ice encased Blue to the castle with their lions’ muzzles. Shiro spares one last glance at the frozen fleets behind them, but Black then suddenly releases Green from her mouth and turns to face the frozen battlefield.

With a roar that reverberates through space, she fires a powerful beam at the command ships. Shiro watches as the beam cuts right through the ice and smashes right into the ships. Flames engulf the command ships from inside the ice, and they explode mere seconds later, causing a chain reaction with their fighter jets, as though the ice encasing them was bomb whose fuse was lit by the scorching beam from Black.

When the last fighter jet explodes and leaves the battlefield littered with remnants of the Galra fleets and shards of ice, Black grabs Green again and flies back to the castle.

Even though Black dealt their revenge, decimating the fleets that dared to hurt their family, there is no taste of victory on his lips and Shiro still feels hollow, just as she does.

 

**~*~**

 

Shiro carefully sets Green down in the shared hanger bay.

Coran, the blessed man, is already waiting with a stretcher. Deeper into the hanger bay, Red and Yellow are carefully setting the ice block holding Blue down. By the time Shiro climbs out of his lion, Coran is inside Green, no doubt trying to get Pidge out, and Keith, Hunk and Allura are fighting over how to remove the ice from around Blue. Tearing his eyes away from the encased Blue, Shiro leaps over to Green, forcing his way through her semi-closed mouth to the cockpit.

Pidge, Voltron’s youngest and tough-as-nails genius technician, is curled in her pilot chair, sobbing. Her chest armor and helmet are full of cracks, multiple growing wet splotches and tears all over the black flight suit, and blood, spilling from the cut that runs across her forehead, leaks down her face and mingles with her tears. Shiro’s heart breaks as she continues crying out for Lance, hands gripping her flight controls tightly as she jerks them around, as though trying to fly Green to find her teammate. Coran is crouching by the pilot chair, trying to coax her out of her seat, but she shakes her head violently, jerking the flight controls even more wildly, and screams ‘HE CAN’T HE CAN’T NO NO NO NO—’

Coran struggles to soothe her, exchanging an anxious look with Shiro as he tries to pry her hand off her flight controls. Suddenly her screams change from ‘no’ to ‘Lance’, her legs lashing out to Green’s deactivated consoles, and rattles the flight controls so violently that Coran and Shiro can hear the mechanisms breaking. Shiro lunges to the other side of the pilot chair and envelopes Pidge into a hug, tightening his arms as her screams are muffled into his armor and her hands release Green’s flight controls to lash out at him. He continues to hug her until her limbs go slack and her throat is unable to continue screaming. Shiro glances up to Coran and blanches at the somber expression that etches across the normally jovial Altean’s face as he ushers Shiro to carry Pidge out of Green to set her on the stretcher.

Keith and Allura are snarling and shouting at each other by the encased Blue, Keith waving his activated bayard in his hand towards the ice, while Hunk is pressing his hands against the ice, face wild with desperation as his eyes dart about the ice as though trying to find a weak spot. Shiro leaves Pidge to Coran, settling her on the stretcher and exchanges a pained look with the royal advisor, then hurries over to the trio as Keith stormily steps into Allura’s space.

“Shiro said Lance’s still in there!”

“Do you think I do not know that?!” Allura shouts back, her normally impeccable bun knocked askew. “We need to figure out how she became encased in this ice! This ice isn’t the normal sort that you can simply melt it off!”

“Then let me cut through it!”

“We cannot risk any more damage to the Blue Lion!”

“FUCK YOU!” Keith roars, brandishing his bayard at Allura, his eyes burning with so much anger that she steps backwards fearfully as he moves forward. “LANCE IS DYING IN THERE, AND YOU DON’T WANT TO DAMAGE BLUE?! WHAT DO YOU CARE ABOUT MORE, YOUR LIONS OR YOUR PILOTS?!”

“Keith!” Shiro barks, surging forward and presses a firm hand against Keith’s chest to push him backwards. “Stand down!”

Keith whips his head to glare at Shiro, eyes blazing so hotly that the pressure Shiro has against Keith’s chest falters for a moment. But the moment Keith tries to surge forward again at Allura, Shiro increases the pressure to push the younger man back further.

“Let go Shiro!” He snarls, furious eyes still trained on Allura. “The Lions can always be fixed, but she still cares about them more than who’s actually piloting them! Like our lives don’t matter!”

“Of course I care for your lives!” Allura surges forward, her own anger lighting her eyes.

“Could’ve fooled me!”

“ENOUGH!” Shiro thrusts his other hand out at Allura and pushes both her and Keith away from each other. “Fighting with each other is not going to help anything!”

Keith and Allura glare heatedly at each other, both trembling against Shiro’s hold on them, but neither push against him. They’re startled when Coran starts shouting from behind them and a brown, white and black blur shoots past them. Pidge, helmet knocked off, launches herself at the ice, clawing and banging her fists at it with fervor. Her voice, raw and pained, calls out for Lance in breathy whispers. Coran brushes past them in a hurry, grabbing Pidge by her middle and tries to haul her away from the ice. Despite her litany of injuries, both external and possible internal ones, Pidge fights against Coran fiercely.

Hunk is still searching the ice.

“ENOUGH!!” Shiro shouts again and all the Paladins and Alteans go still. Trembling, Shiro glares at them, one by one. “Keith, Allura, step back from each other. I don’t need you two butting heads right now because you’ll be of no help if we want to save Lance! Pidge, let Coran look you over god’s sake, because I’m not losing you too! Coran, get Pidge to the med bay and in the cyro pod to heal!”

“Hunk!” Shiro stomps forward, releasing the stunned Keith and Allura. “What’re you doing?”

“Lance.” Hunk murmurs, his entire body quivering as he continues to press his palms against the ice. “Gotta get him out… I can’t—I can’t leave him in there, can’t leave him in there. There’s gotta be a weak spot we can hit—shatter the ice…”

“We start cutting into the ice then.” Shiro says shakily, pressing a hand to the ice. “We can’t afford to use Red’s fire beam inside, so we’re going to have to make do. Chip off as much as you can until we’re closer to Blue. Then we have to go slowly if we want to get to Lance.”

“Shiro!” Allura storms up to him, hand grabbing onto his shoulder and pulling him. “I have not approved such action—”

“We are cutting into the ice to get closer to Blue!” Shiro shouts, smacking Allura’s hand away, eyes focused on Blue’s head. “Then we proceed with caution to get Lance in the cockpit! If we need to, we cut a hole in Blue Lion to get him out!”

“Denied!” She shouts back, surging forward to block Shiro from Blue. “We need to find out what happened to Blue Lion’s quintessence before doing anything else! If you break the ice, we may lose the Blue Lion completely!”

An icy silence settles in the hanger bay, the Paladins present and Coran staring at Allura in disbelief. Pidge ceases her struggles against Coran and Hunk stops pressing his hands against the ice. Just as Keith surges forward with a snarl, fist pulled back and ready to fly, a loud slap reverberates in the hanger bay. Keith freezes in his tracks as Coran sucks in a deep, shaky breath.

Allura clutches her darkening cheek, eyes wide in shock as Shiro breathes heavily, staring at her with stormy eyes with an outline glow of dark purple. He used his prosthetic to hit her.

“That was not a request.” He growls, the dark purple glow outlining his eyes growing brighter. “Nor was I asking for your permission. We’re going to cut into the ice to get closer to Blue, and then proceed with caution when we’ve cut enough ice away to get to Lance. If we need to, we _will_ cut a hole in her to get him out.”

Black roars from her protective stance by the powered down Green; then Red and Yellow roar as well, and Allura stills, trembling. Her eyes dart between the Lions, the Paladins and Coran, then she nods, tears springing from the corners of her eyes.

“Al-alright…”

Without another word, Keith dashes towards Red, Hunk following on to Yellow. Coran cradles the sobbing Pidge in a bridal carry, the Green Paladin no longer fighting against him, and whisks her away as Red and Yellow begin clawing chunks of ice off. With Black still standing protectively over Green, Shiro remains where he is. He does not look to Allura when she quietly steps to stand beside him as Red and Yellow work as much ice off as they can.

The two lions make quick work to narrow down the ice into a smaller block, and Shiro notices that none of the ice was melting. All the chunks of ice littered over the hanger bay are still in one piece and there is no wet spots. Yellow and Red slowly shift the block of ice to lay on its side, bringing the side of Blue’s head closer to the ground. From there, Keith and Hunk clamber out of their Lions; Hunk, goes to get his tools while Keith simply activates his bayard and begins hacking off more of the ice towards Blue’s head. The moment Hunk returns with his tools, Shiro grabs one and begins hacking alongside them. Allura remains in her spot, watching them as her bottom lip wobbles. Red and Yellow linger close by, both watching almost critically as the Paladins work.

Hours later, Coran reappears in the hanger bay with water packets as they reach closer to Blue’s head, chipping away the ice surrounding that area; all their white Paladin armors lay discarded around the hanger bay and Allura is still watching them closely with her hands clasped together as if praying. The hanger bay temperature is cold enough that the Paladins dispel white puffs of breath as they work. The moment they reach the metal and clear the ice from her open jaws and surrounding her head, Hunk scrambles into her mouth. Shiro jumps when Hunk curses.

“The cockpit doors aren’t opening! We have to cut the top of her head to get in!”

Again, Coran the blessed man steps forward, quietly directing Keith on the best spot to begin cutting through Blue’s hull at the top of her head. Shiro, Hunk and Allura crowds to Coran’s side as Keith sinks his bayard through the metal and starts sawing.

“This should be directly above the pilot’s seat in the cockpit.” Coran says softly, mustache twitching constantly as if agitated.

Keith grunts as he continues to saw a circle, muttering about the inside being solid. Once the sawed circle is complete and Keith deactivates his bayard, Shiro and Hunk surge forward towards the cut circle and worm their fingers to grab the metal. Exchanging a grim nod to the fearful Hunk, Shiro murmurs a countdown and they pull the metal to pop it out. When the metal hull is pulled out, they scramble forward and Shiro hand reaches to the hole, only to meet with yet another block of ice.

Black’s last image to him flashes in Shiro’s mind as he stares into the hole.

_Blue’s cockpit completely filled with ice and the blue paladin, no longer bound by laws of gravity, body frozen in mid-air—_

Lance’s body is not on the pilot’s chair, floating above it as though the gravity was turned off, curving backwards with his limbs spread away from his body. His head is tilted upwards to the roof of the cockpit, but his eyes cannot be seen from inside the ice and behind the frosted protective screen of his helmet. His mouth with the palest of lips, unprotected without the activation of the fully closed helmet, is open slightly and thin wisps of his hair are curled over his bruised cheeks and neck. There are splotches of red surrounding his head, coming from under his helmet, and a dark patch of discoloration on one side of his stomach and thighs.

“Lance…” Hunk sobs, pressing his hands against the ice. Keith and Coran look stricken at the frozen body. Allura’s eyes widen as her hands tremble, reaching forward to place her fingertips onto the exposed ice, right above Lance’s head.

Blue’s entire cockpit is a single ice block and there is visibly no way Lance can be cut out with the current hole Keith made.

So, they proceed to make a bigger hole in Blue’s hull with Hunk’s tools and Keith’s bayard. Coran urges the Paladins to drink their water packets and only when those are drained, disappears to continue his duties. Allura mumbles about settling the castle on a safe location and steps out of the hanger bay to the bridge with the space mice clinging to her neck. The three still active Lions continue their vigil over their Paladins as they opened Blue further then cut into the block of ice formed inside of her cockpit. They make a deep hole in the ice, behind Lance’s body, big enough for Keith to crouch in and slowly carry on cutting around his body.

With each passing minute, the hope that once pressed fiercely against Shiro’s chest wanes, but still he works hard to cut the ice.

None of them notice Pidge stumbling back into the hanger bay as they are cutting the ice inside of Blue’s cockpit beneath Lance’s feet, still clad in her torn flight suit and clearly exhausted. She shakily makes her way to Blue, sinking to her knees when she’s close enough to see them working on cutting the Lance block from the cockpit, whimpering softly when she catches sight of Lance’s up tilted head through the ice. The space mice squeak unhappily at her, one in her hair, two on her shoulders and the biggest one patting her stomach. Pidge’s hands cup over Platt, quivering as she hugs him closer to her, eyes still following her teammates as they continue to work furiously against the ice. The mice are quick to nuzzle her cheeks when she releases distressed whines.

Shiro and Hunk heave the heavy cut out block of ice out of the cockpit slowly. Keith drags himself out of the hole in the iced over cockpit, shivering violently. The cut-out block of ice slides out and Shiro and Hunk grasp one side to flip the block over, that Lance would be ‘laying’ on his back inside of his side.

“Start chipping.” Shiro says tersely, glancing up when Keith reactivates his bayard. “No! Not with you bayard Keith! We need to do this slowly!”

“It’s—It’s b-been h-h-hours Shiro!” Keith shouts, teeth chattering and waves his sword about even as he continues shivering. “We sh-sh-should’ve gotten him ou-ou-out by n-now!”

“If you just hack the ice off without precision, you could cut him!” Shiro roars, seizing Keith by the arms and pins a wild stare into his eyes. “We don’t want him in pieces because we were careless in getting him out Keith!”

“ _Please_ Keith.” His voice drops to a whisper full of agony, expression crumbling. “I don’t want to bring him out in pieces.”

Pidge makes another noise of distress and the mice settled on her head and shoulders squeak in equal distress at Shiro’s words. Hunk falls to his knees, whimpering, and the fire in Keith’s eyes fade as he slumps in Shiro’s hold. He releases Keith as weariness seeps into his bones.

Shiro wants to say that Lance is alright. He desperately wants to tell his team Lance will be up in no time, back to being loud and obnoxiously endearing, but he can’t. The more time that passes them as they work to chip off the ice to get to Lance, the less hopeful Shiro feels.

Black’s continuous mournful rumbles at the back of his head forces him to expect the worst.

Allura and Coran reappear as they reach closer to Lance. His lower body is free from ice, heels touching the floor as they work to chip off the ice on his back to lay him down completely. Coran immediately grabs a tool and joins them in removing the rest of the ice, while Allura, visibly shaking with twitching fingers, shifts to stand beside the curled figure of Pidge still seated on the floor.

Finally, _finally_ , the ice is off. Hands are scrambling everywhere over Lance’s body. Shiro’s hands gently press onto Lance’s body to ease his spine back down from its arched posture while Coran hurriedly unfastens the battered armor off Lance’s chest. Keith tries to feel Lance’s wrist and Hunk presses his palms onto the exposed parts of Lance’s face, sobbing.

“Lance? Lance, please! Please, please, please, please, please… wake up, wake up, wake up—”

Pidge hurls herself forward, elbowing past Coran as he pulls the chest armor away and the mice nowhere to be seen, and flings herself over Lance’s chest. Pressing her ear to the top left of his chest, her hands grip the cold fabric of his flight suit tightly. A sob escapes her throat as she presses herself closer against Lance’s unmoving chest.

“I’m not getting anything…” Keith whispers, pressing shaking fingers against Lance’s wrists. “S-Shiro—there’s no pulse…”

Shiro quickly rattles the helmet off, flinching when glazed, half-opened blue eyes stare up at him and frozen rivers of red run from the top of the forehead down to the chin. Hunk dissolves into sobs while Shiro hovers his hand above Lance’s nose and mouth, then pushes Pidge off his chest hurriedly. Placing his right hand over his left and resting the heels of his hand at the middle lower ribcage of Lance’s chest, Shiro pushes his weight down hard and fast, counting the compressions under his breath. He counts to thirty then scrambles back to Lance’s head, tilting his chin upwards and pinches his nose close. Shiro presses his lips to Lance’s cold ones, breathes two short breaths in that pushes Lance’s chest up and hovers his face over Lance’s mouth.

Nothing. Black rumbles despairingly at the back of his head.

He repeats the motions again, mumbling under his breath ‘come on, breathe! Breathe Lance!’ as he compresses Lance’s chest again. Again, again, and again, but Lance remains still, body impossibly cold and limp. Halfway through his fifth set of compressions, Shiro’s arms falter and he stops. Shiro stares down at the unseeing eyes of the Blue Paladin and chokes back a sob, settling backwards onto his heels.

His mind does not process Hunk kneeling forward, cupping Lance’s head in his hands and brings his forehead down to press against his best friend’s, sobbing loudly.

He does not see Pidge fling herself over Lance’s body again, small hands clutching his flight suit as she muffles her wails against his unmoving chest.

He does not notice Coran bend forward and cradle Lance’s limp hand to his chest, silent tears slipping from his eyes.

He doesn’t hear the mice squeak in despair or Allura step forward, sinking to her knees beside Coran.

He doesn’t acknowledge when Keith brushes against him when he moves forward, clutching onto Lance’s other hand tightly, and bends forward, resting his forehead on Lance’s shoulder as his body quivers.

Shiro does not see his team fall to pieces. He only sees white.

The three remaining active Lions in the hanger bay release roars of despair as Voltron mourns the loss of their Blue, both Paladin and Lion.

  
  


The exposed quintessence core of Blue Lion behind them, still encased in ice, flickers briefly then fades to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have issues with too many ideas ._. I have at least 5 ideas bouncing around my head, _and_ I just trashed all 3 chapters of a possible VLD series I wrote some time ago.
> 
> In any case, thanks for reading! :) Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!


	3. Silence & Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Castle remains silent. Until it doesn't.  
>  _  
> "Still his grief manifests in his dreams, his nightmares, and he wakes to tears running down his cheeks, pain rippling through his overworked body and the aching feeling of loss deep in his chest when he finds his hands reaching out to grasp a phantom not there."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith chapter! Feel free to interpret the chapter in however you want. :)
> 
> Do not do as he does. 
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Silence & Noise**

**~*~**

 

The Castle of Lions plunges into silence.

At first, they try to put him in the healing pods, hoping for it to resuscitate him, but the Altean words that flash across the screen of the pod leaves Coran in tears.

_‘Life vitals not found.’_ Coran translates to them through his tears. _‘Initiating body preservation protocols.’_

Everything from there on falls apart.

Hunk no longer cooks in the kitchen or tinkers with the Lions, just spends his days and nights in the pod chambers watching the pod preserving his best friend’s body. Pidge joins him often, without her usual electronics to work on, sobbing apologies into the older teen’s shirt as he cuddles her close through his own tears. When she’s not with Hunk, she huddles in the hanger bay by Green, slowly repairing her Lion back to functionality in silence without any help from the others. The four space mice often stay with Hunk and Pidge in the pod chambers, wiping their tears and nuzzling their cheeks as they stare at the lifeless body in the pod. Allura keeps herself busy at the bridge or anywhere else for as long as she can without coming across any of the Paladins, and Shiro barely leaves his quarters. When he does, he’s quiet, not seeing any one, eyes sunk inwards and surrounded with darkening rings. Coran works without cheer, mechanically going through his duties around the castle like an android the Paladins once joked him to be for his lack of sleeping routine, but still approaches all the Paladins and his charge with gentleness to feed and water them.

Keith?

Keith makes the training deck his new quarters, screaming, punching and slicing training bots day in and day out until his throat is dry and the skin of his knuckles resemble torn flimsy paper shreds. Whenever he feels Red grieving at the back of his mind—every day, every hour, every minute, every second—Keith punches harder, screams louder, and tears the bots to pieces as her grief mingles with his own and amplifies the feeling tenfold.

His only breaks between his fights is when Coran urges him to eat, or when he finally passes out from exhaustion in the middle of the training deck.

Still his grief manifests in his dreams, his nightmares, and he wakes to tears running down his cheeks, pain rippling through his overworked body and the aching feeling of loss deep in his chest when he finds his hands reaching out to grasp a phantom not there.

He repeats the training sequences, praying for a dreamless sleep to come where he isn’t haunted by empty blue eyes that stare at him almost accusingly or Lance’s last gentle whisper through the comms that gouges holes in his heart.

Voltron was the symbol of hope for the universe. The Paladins were seen untouchable and indestructible, a distinct part of the symbol of hope that the universe depended on. Infallible legends.

But ultimately, they are only mortal and Voltron was now crippled by the loss of their leg.

Their heart.

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

Keith screams and beheads the gladiator with his bayard.

 

**~*~**

 

He stumbles out of the training deck eventually, after being bitten and chased out by three of the four worried space mice. They squeak on his shoulders, trying to guide him to the training deck showers as he leans heavily against the walls, but exhaustion has caught up with Keith. Yet he refuses to close his eyes, his grief still fueling his nightmares. Just as he slips and falls forward, he finds himself wrapped in a familiar embrace. He blinks the blur from his vision and sees the last of the space mice right in front of his face, standing on its hind legs and peering at him with worry on the familiar bicep of his pseudo-brother.

Shiro doesn’t utter a word. No teasing of Keith getting scolded by mice, no gentle reprimand for overworking, no exasperated sigh. Instead, he slips his arm under Keith’s knees and wraps the other arm around his back, bringing Keith up into a princess hold and carries the sweaty, exhausted teenager to the showers. Keith does not fight against him and just hangs limply in Shiro’s arms.

The mice disappear once they’re in the showers, scampering through the vents of the castle destination unknown. Shiro and Keith still do not exchange words when Keith disappears behind the shower stall and sits on the cold floor, letting the spray of water rain down the showerhead onto him. His movements are slow and sluggish, but Shiro is still there to throw a towel at him when he crawls out of the stall. He manages to wrestle on his underwear and pants when his strength finally leaves him, and Keith simply lets his arms hang loosely, towel spread over his bowed head. He makes no noise of acknowledgement when Shiro appears, squatting in front of him, and gently rubs the towel over Keith’s wet locks before pulling a shirt over him.

Keith stares blankly as Shiro hoists him onto his back, his legs tucked firmly under his arms, and takes him on a piggy-back ride. He concentrates on hushing his brains into silence and absently pulls away from the pulsing that is Red’s grieving on the edge of his mind. He feels the castle floors quake as a roar of despair echoes through walls from beneath them. Wincing, Keith slowly allows Red in again and she links to him tightly, though reining in her grief from him.

Shiro pauses to give Keith a questioning glance over his shoulder; Keith merely looks away.

A squeak above catches his attention, and the smallest of the space mice tumbles down onto his head. Keith hisses as Chulatt scampers across his scalp through the jungle that was his hair and slides down the middle of his face onto Shiro’s shoulder. The tiny blue mouse squeaks again, ignoring Keith’s scandalized expression, pokes Shiro’s cheek with its tiny nose and hops down to the floor, pointing down the corridor. Keith watches the small alien mouse scamper forward and look back to them, as if making sure Shiro was following it.

When they enter the room, Keith’s residual energy needed to clear his mind is sucked away from his person the moment he sees his fellow Paladins at the dining table.

Pidge is pressed against Hunk’s side with her knees drawn up to her chest, absently poking the food goo settled in front of her face, devoid of energy. Her round glasses amplify the rings of black surrounding her red rimmed eyes, sunken deep into her sockets. Her hair, though normally like a bird’s nest, sticks out even more haphazardly and glistens with an oily sheen under the lights. The laptop, her beloved constant companion, is nowhere to be found in the dining room.

Hunk is eating mechanically; scooping, lifting, into mouth, pull, down, rinse and repeat. Even though the plate is empty. His dark skin hides how dark the rings around his eyes are, but has become deathly pale and sickly, and his eyes, hollow and devoid of emotion, gazes at the empty seat opposite him. Matted hair, normally held back by his yellow headband, sticks out in odd directions, with an oily sheen that rivals Pidge’s own. There is a slump in his shoulders, a miserable aura emitting from his entire being that fans out and infects everyone within its radius with sadness. Keith feels it the moment they get closer, and it intertwines with Red’s grief and his own angry agony. The feelings swell in his chest and he struggles to breathe, hands gripping onto Shiro’s shirt tightly as he tries to squash the feelings away.

Only after Shiro deposits him onto a chair, wrestling his gripping fingers from his shirt, does Keith take note of his pseudo-brother’s own state of disarray. Shiro’s hair is equally oily and unwashed as the other two, blackened eyes sunken even further into his sockets than Pidge’s, and with noticeable wrinkles stretching below the bags under his eyes and around the curves of his downturned lips. Black and white stubble covers his chin and sides of his face. Shiro has aged over a decade in a span of a few days. Keith feels his heart ache as Shiro drops into the seat beside him with his shoulders hunching forward and rubs his hands over his face.

The silence is deafening.

Keith squeezes his eyes shut, dropping his head onto the table until a squeak makes Keith jerk his head up from the table, and he looks down to see Chulatt and Chuchule valiantly pushing a plate of food goo towards him while Platt leisurely pushes another plate towards Shiro on his own. The duo squeak again when they reach him, scuttling around his wrist and pushes his hand to grasp the spoon on the plate. Chuchule nudges him to eat while Chulatt scampers across the table to Pidge, squeaking in dismay as she continues to poke the food goo on her plate. Hunk has finally left his spoon on the empty plate, but his eyes are still focused blankly on the empty seat opposite of him.

Just as Shiro rubs the top of Platt’s head with a finger, Allura and Coran walk into the dining room. Plachu, the final mouse, sits serenely on Allura’s shoulder. But the moment Allura catches sight of the Paladins, she spins one hundred and eighty degrees on her heel and begins walking back out, until she yelps loud enough that all pairs of tired, haunted eyes lock onto her back.

Chuchule scampers to Allura while Platt heads over to Coran, the pink mouse squeaking fiercely while pawing at Allura’s chin while the fat yellow one simply points to the food goo dispenser as he settles calmly on Coran’s shoulder. The chastised expression on Allura’s face from the scolding she receives by the mice would have put a smile on all their lips and invite laughter. But the gap between them, that one missing vibrant presence, prevents them all from cracking even the tiniest of smiles.

Red’s grief pulses harder against his skull, even though his Lion is trying hard to rein it back again. The Alteans are faring no better than the rest of the Earthling humans.

Coran is visibly haggard, normally impeccably smooth and slicked back hair sticking out here and there, the bright sparkle is absent from his eyes with lips turned downwards. Like Hunk, he too has a slump in his shoulders, and he’s impossibly quiet as he follows Platt’s orders to prepare plates of food goo. He looks every bit his age of…whatever his age was, maybe even older, with pain seated deeply in his eyes.

Allura too is frazzled, but while her glossy white tresses hang limp and dull, nails bitten into and uneven with her make-up undone, she does not look half as bad as the rest of them do. She’s still fighting the mice on remaining in the dining room, but then Chuchule bites her ear and stares right into Allura’s eyes, releasing a terrifying snarl from such a tiny mouse that Allura grudgingly relents and sits down at her normal seat where Coran slips a plate of food goo in front of her.

It’s the first time in seven days that the entire team is gathered in the same room.

Seven days since that mission failure.

(Or was it? The fleets had been destroyed and Ba’lal was safe from the Galra. The people of Ba’lal even agreed to the Voltron Alliance without hesitation, just as Allura wanted. For her, the militant commander of Voltron, the mission was a success. For the team, who feels the hole in their hearts, it was a complete failure.)

Seven days since they hauled Blue Lion’s icy grave into the castle.

Seven days since they dug Lance out from his ice coffin, too late, too late, too late—

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

Keith smashes his head downwards, catching the edge of the plate of food goo and flipping it over his head as he claps his palms over his ears. Red whines mournfully in the recesses of his mind and her grief engulfs him. He ignores the food good splattered over his newly washed hair. He doesn’t acknowledge Shiro’s arms wrapping around his shoulders, nose pressing into the side of his head, rocking him gently. Instead, he screams. He screams into the table, clenching his fists and bangs them violently against the metal repeatedly, making everything settled on the table jump with each strike.

“HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO DIE!”

His fingers find the plate settled on his head and grasps it, then smashes it down onto the table. Pieces of the shattered plate fly, shards cutting into his hands, slitting across his exposed skin and across the table as he continues screaming.

“HE SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO DIE!”

Shiro pulls him closer as Keith flails, preventing him from smashing his head back down onto the table with the remaining shards of the plate.

“HE DIDN’T NEED TO DIE!”

He takes ragged breaths in, body trembling and vision blurring as tears well in his eyes. His watering eyes stare at the blood oozing from the cuts in his hands and Keith sees tanned skin devoid of color with frozen red rivers etching downwards—

“Why’d he have to die?!” Keith chokes out, his tears slipping down his cheeks. “Why weren’t we fast enough?”

As his mouth spills out ‘whys’, Keith barely notices Coran appearing by his side, grasping his hands and gently pulling out the shards of ceramic embedded in his skin. He doesn’t hear Pidge dissolving into sobs, or when Hunk smashes his own fists down on the table, or when the mice squeak angrily at Allura when she rises to leave, or her own shriek of surprise when they bite her. Shiro keeps his arms around Keith, pressing him closer, but he remains silent as Keith continues throwing out ‘whys’.

“Why didn’t we save him?”

“I don’t know.”

At his soft whisper, Keith jerks his head up to meet Shiro’s sorrowful gaze. Shiro tucks Keith’s goo covered head beneath his chin, murmuring ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I’m sorry’ repeatedly. A smaller body crashes into his chest and Keith finds Pidge clinging onto him tightly, an open tap of tears wetting his shirt as she whispers ‘he shouldn’t have died’ into his chest. A heavy weight presses against his back as thick arms wrap around him and Shiro, squeezing them together as Hunk drops his head forward into his goo encrusted hair and sniffles, a waterfall of tears dripping from his chin. Coran, still by Keith’s other side, squeezes his bleeding hand tightly.

Seven days of silence.

Seven days of individual mourning.

Keith hasn’t felt as loss so keenly as this. People leaving was a normal for him, but they never left because of death. With Shiro, there was no body for Keith to believe his death despite what everyone tells him. With Lance, the unmoving stone-cold body with pale lips and empty blue eyes as witnessed by his own two eyes is evidence enough to Keith that he was never coming back. Never going to rile Keith up again with his snark and games, never going to have his back again when Keith needs him, never going to flash Keith cheeky smiles, smug grins or waggle his eyebrows so exaggeratedly it makes him laugh. He clutches onto the remainder of his team tightly, as though afraid they too will disappear.

As they mourn together, they don’t hear the mice squeaking when Allura strides out the dining room.

 

**~*~**

 

“Did you know he has five sisters and one brother?”

“I know he has a big family, but how did his mother survive seven pregnancies?”

“Five actually, his three older sisters are triplets. They’re also the ones who got him into the whole beauty routine. Can’t say it hasn’t worked for him because _dude_ , have you seen how bouncy his skin is? I squished his cheeks with my hands once after they corrupted him and holy geez, it was so soft and smooth I couldn’t stop squishing them. He just laughed at me and let me squish his cheeks for like, ten minutes straight. Mariposa and Marisol never stopped teasing me for molesting his cheeks since then, and Maricella just gave me a set of their beauty products for my next birthday and told me I could have my own set of smooth squishy cheeks if I had my own beauty routine.”

Several hours later, the Paladins have since cleaned up and converged in one pillow pile in the middle of the common room to sleep with Coran watching over them as their silent sentry. When they wake, Hunk begins sharing his memories of Lance and Lance’s family with the team, who crack their first smiles and giggles in days as they listen to his warm stories of their friend. Keith listens closely to the stories of the family’s relationship, the corners of his lips constantly twitching upwards when the epiphany hits him of ‘ah, that’s explains a whole lot about him’ as warmth spreads in his chest. Only Allura is left missing from their gathering.

“When Theo came to him and cried about getting bullied in school for being different, Lance taught him how to prank the bullies and make sure it never linked back to him. Then he’d accompany Theo in doing whatever he liked to do and told him never to be ashamed of himself for being different. Lance was his secret keeper, and Lance would drop everything for Theo whenever he needed him. Well, maybe except when Ana had his attention…”

“Oh, you guys are real lucky you’ve never seen him pissed off. Like, _really_ pissed off. There was this one time, like two years ago, some older kid pushed his little sister Estefania so hard she broke her arm, Lance was _furious_. We weren’t in the Garrison yet that time, so I was there when he got the call from the elementary school and went with him. When he saw Essie crying and bloodied, and then the teacher told him that her arm broke, he gave the kid this really terrifying look that made the kid piss in his pants there and then. He didn’t shout or anything, just super focused on the kid with that look, which made it even scarier. I’d never seen that kind of look on his face, ever. It’s a nightmare inducer; I swore never to piss him off ever again since that day.”

“You should see him with Ana! Man, she has him so wrapped around her fingers, it’s adorable. He’ll go running to her the moment she squeaks and he keeps on stealing her from his mom. He even slept on the floor of her room to look after her at night so that his folks could sleep through the night when she was born, until his mom finally moved her crib to his room so that he could sleep too. Ana’s his little princess and he swore that no guy was ever going to be good enough for her and that he was going to protect her from everything. She’s just as attached to him because she’ll always crawl to him and his name was her first word! When we were accepted into the Garrison, Ana wouldn’t stop screaming and refused to let Lance go when we were leaving. Lance had to set up face-time every night in our first year to get her to go to bed.”

“I’m quite curious to know what kind of child Lance was.” Coran hums. “Was he as boisterous as how we know him to be?”

“You guys won’t believe me if I tell you.” Hunk grins as his face takes on a wistful expression.

“I believe the Earth term was… humor me? Yes! Do humor me number two.”

“He was the exact opposite.” Hunk laughs. “It’s true! He was as quiet as a mouse and the least obtrusive person I had ever seen when I first met him. His dad once told me, that in a house full of loud, headstrong women, the men needed to keep their heads down and zip their lips to stay out of the warzone. I believed it, because I’ve seen the warzone between his mom, sisters, his _Abuela_ , aunts and cousins, and it was really obvious that the men in the house were seriously outnumbered. Like…there was Lance, Uncle Tajo, his _Abuelo_ and…I think two other uncles and one male cousin. Everyone else are girls.”

“Lance was also really small.” Hunk’s eyes take on the wistful look again. “When I first met him in second grade, I thought he was from the kindergarten classes in the next building, but it turned out that he was in my class! I mean, I was pretty big for an eight-year-old so I didn’t make friends easily because everyone kept on calling me the fat kid, but he didn’t! And he was just so tiny and adorable that I couldn’t help but squeeze him into a hug when he sat down beside me. When he got so still in my arms I panicked, dropped him and started apologizing. He just shook his head and told me that he was just surprised because I had a really warm and strong hug. He only came up to below my chest then, and his growth spurt only hit him when he was closer to his fifteenth birthday while mine hit me before I turned thirteen. He was a lot tinier than the rest of our class and before he hit his growth spurt, he was like, maybe up to my elbow. I think a little shorter then that though…”

“…I wanna see pictures.” Keith blurts out inelegantly, his mind conjuring possible images of a tiny, baby faced Lance beside the bigger, chubbier Hunk. When his mind catches up to his words, Keith blushes. The rest voice their agreement the same time he blushes, but then Red purrs in amusement at the back of his head and Keith nudges her away, exasperated.

“I need proof of his tiny-ness!”

“I’m very curious to see how small Lance was…”

“I’m not sure if my imagination is doing any justice to the real thing.”

“Ok, ok! When we get back to Earth—” Hunk wavers then, his bottom lip beginning to wobble. “I can-I can go to his place or mine to get our photographs—”

Pidge presses herself against his side as Hunk buries his face into his hands, choking on his sobs.

“What…What am I going to tell his family?” Hunk chokes out, words muffling behind his hands. “Guys? H-how am I going to tell them he’s dead? That he’s never coming back?”

“…Hunk…” Shiro reaches forward to rest his hand on Hunk’s shoulders, and the teenager quivers.

“How can I face Aunty Mirana and Uncle Tajo and tell them that their son died for a war that’s not ours? Oh god…Sol, Posa and Cella…How can I tell them the little brother they adored and was the most willing to let them test beauty products on him every night is gone? How can I tell Theo, Essie and Ana that their beloved big brother who always drops everything the moment they need him is never coming home? _Auai le atua e_ … his _Abuela_ will die of grief if I tell her Lance is dead! She always said that the worst thing a parent can do is to bury their own child…”

Keith feels his heart sink as Hunk babbles on. He looks to Shiro and finds an expression of pain on his pseudo-brother’s face. They’ve never thought about the what would happen if they returned to Earth, and if any of them actually died out in the war. The Paladins of Voltron always came back, always in the nick of time to send their injured into the pods and save their lives.

Until now. They were after all, still mortal. They could not take those risks again.

Never again.

“I suppose—” Coran begins softly, gathering the Paladins’ attention. “—Lance would…prefer to be laid at rest on Earth?”

“I have no doubt about that.” Shiro says softly, rubbing Hunk’s shoulder. “Coran? What are the odds that the Princess will let us wormhole to Earth to inform his family and arrange his funeral?”

“I—”

“We cannot.”

They all look up to see Allura, looking even wearier than earlier with dampness on her dress, step into the common room. The four space mice skitter across the floor away from her, Platt to Hunk, Chulatt to Pidge, Plachu to Shiro and Chuchule to Keith. Keith stares down at Chuchule when the pink mouse reaches his shoulder and releases a snarl towards Allura. Keith exchanges a wary glance with Shiro.

“What do you mean Princess?”

“We cannot—” She swallows loudly. “—We cannot afford to make a trip to Earth. We’ve just received notification from the Blade of Marmora that the Empire is now tracking us, and the fact that we have not been doing anything for last eight quintants with both Green Lion and Blue Lion in need of serious repairs… There will also be distress signals that we need to attend to.”

“At best, we can give Lance an Altean farewell ceremony on the ship. But with our current circumstances…We will not be able to make any side trip to Earth.”

“Princess…” Coran murmurs, standing up to stride to her side almost pleadingly. “Surely it does not have to be this way? It would mean a great deal to his family if we could return his body to them to give them closure?”

“I cannot grant that request.” Allura says, diverting her eyes away, hands clasping tightly together at her front. “Every quintant not used to fight the Galra is a quintant wasted. A quintant we could have used to save millions of lives. An entire planet. A whole galaxy. We have wasted eight quintants already.”

Any other day, Keith would have agreed with her without hesitation; they had a responsibility to the universe, to protect, to liberate planets and civilizations from threats of Galra. Chosen by the Lions for the honorable duty of being their pilots, a Defender of the Universe. A duty he takes so seriously that Keith recalls every single time Lance calls him a ‘fun sucker’ whenever he lambasts him for trying to plan relaxation days for the Paladins.

But this isn’t any other day. It’s only the seventh day (or was it eighth?) after they’ve lost a friend, a brother, a comrade, Voltron’s right leg. They wanted to do right by him.

“ _Wasted_?” Keith snarls, hackles rising. From the corner of his eye, Shiro is hauling himself up to his feet while Hunk sucks in a deep breath and notes an expression of fury etched across Pidge’s face. “So, we’re not allowed to mourn? Not allowed to bury him properly? All he’s ever wanted was to go back to Earth, to go _home_. He’s made it damn clear since day one! But he still stuck around to help you fight against the Galra and he gave his life for your Mission! You owe him that much, _we_ owe him that much! The state of the universe isn’t going to change if we take a few more days off to bring him back to his family.”

“I cannot grant that request.” Allura repeats quietly, turning away from them even as the mice squeak angrily from the shoulders of the Paladins. “This discussion is over. We will be leaving the Ba’lal system in one varga Paladins, you should all prepare for the wormhole jump.”

She sweeps out of the room without hearing the protests from the others. All Keith can hear is the white noise buzzing in his head and a deafening roar from his Lion.

Two hours and one wormhole jump later, the silence that engulfed the Castle of Lions eight days prior, shatters by the angry and despairing roars of four Lions reflecting the inner turmoil of their Paladins.

 

 

The shell of Blue Lion remains half encased in ice, untouched since that day, but the exposed quintessence core glows a soft baby blue that pulses like a beating heart briefly, then fades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One single tag explains quuuuuite a bit with regards to a certain character's attitude here ;) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next chapter!


	4. Pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge feels more intensely than ever. 
> 
> Healing is slow, but it is happening. 
> 
>  
> 
> _"Suddenly, he wasn’t just… Lance anymore, you know? He was more than just Lance to me, he became a brother, my brother Lance.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop! Here's Pidge's chapter of feels!
> 
> I needed some Pidge and Coran interactions d._.b 
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Pulse**

**~*~**

 

Lance once described Pidge as a ball of angry; one single misplaced poke or word and she’ll tear the poor unfortunate soul to shreds with her sharp tongue and scare the remainder life out of them with her death glare, all in the span of a single second. An unstoppable small ball of angry, he had teased, so full of anger that everyone had to step far, far away lest they get caught in the slaughter. Pidge knows this, embraces it even, because this is her and she’s not ashamed of herself. She calls out the bullshit as bluntly as she always does when she sees it, and she throws the biggest tantrum if she’s not getting the results she needs. She gets called out for her own obnoxious behavior and she sulks for a while, but ultimately, logic and common sense sees her through. She is still a child.

Voltron’s talented technical genius, the youngest of their team, the Green Paladin, and resident ‘smol angry gremlin’.

To say she is angry is putting it far too mildly.

Pidge is _livid_ , and the culprit responsible for making her feel this way has long since ignored her after her explosion when the team finds out what was done in the few hours when the pod chambers is clear without visitors.

His body is gone. _Gone_. Removed from the pod preserving it and into some Altean version of a crematory hidden in the castle where surely only bone fragments remain. No ceremony, no goodbye, no last glimpse of the teenager Pidge has come to love as a brother. All because Allura thinks they have grieved enough and wants to push Voltron to move on.

Suddenly, it makes sense why the Altean Princess wouldn’t look them in the eye when she stepped into the common room. Why the mice no longer stayed by her side.

In the middle of her rampage, Pidge swears on Lance’s bones that she will never to listen to Allura ever again, and that once she finds her father and brother, she is _out_. No more Defender of the Universe. No more Voltron. No more stupid Altean Princesses with no shred of decency in them to even think of the Paladins’ feelings and their last wishes.

Allura fights back, shouting that she too feels his absence keenly and mourns for him, but the universe needs Voltron. They couldn’t forget The Mission. Surely Lance would understand their circumstances? Without a ‘Last Will’ to follow, Allura believes herself well within her rights as the Princess of the Castle of Lions and Voltron’s commander to make the decision of laying him to rest her way without needing the input of her Paladins and angrily reminds them that her position still commands respect from them when they all loudly protest.

Keith punches Allura so hard, a horrible crack sounds the moment his fist connects with her nose and sends her flying backwards into the pod chamber’s main console. A screaming match ensures.

The atmosphere in the castle goes from sad and mourning, to explosively angry and tense.

Amid the altercation between Keith, Pidge and Allura that Shiro desperately tries to quell, Hunk and Coran disappear from the pod chambers but when they reappear with Hunk gently cradling a sealed blue patterned urn in his hands, Pidge loses the fight with her tears. Shaking from head to toe, she reaches toward him and presses her trembling hands against Hunk’s, staring straight at the urn resting at her eye level.

This is all they have left of him.

Hunk retreats to his room with the urn, sealing himself inside for the next two days, his sobs of agony echoing from behind the walls. Keith returns to the training deck, slaughtering all the gladiators he can while screaming out his fury. Pidge hides in the Lion hanger, huddling inside of Green’s cockpit as she splits between crying and working on her. Shiro, along with the mice, hunts them all down and accompanies them, sitting silently by Pidge’s side as her tears silently drip down her cheeks while blindly tapping her keyboard, sparring with Keith to help him release all his explosive anger from his body, and stands outside of Hunk’s room, pressing his forehead against the cold metal door and murmurs quietly through the gap.

Coran gathers the Paladins with their new mice companions together one morning, Allura suspiciously absent, and takes them into a hidden room beside the armory.

Inside, a holographic image of Lance in full Paladin gear sans the helmet greets them, his rifle bayard resting on his shoulder, his other hand resting on his hip with his signature smirk playing on his lips. Beside the hologram, Lance’s cleaned Paladin gear, flight suit littered with stitches, shattered helmet, cracked and frayed white armor lay on display. Beside it is a square indent in the wall that Coran urges Hunk to place the urn into. Once inside, the urn locks in position and a glass door seals it within; Coran tells them he alone has the password and will release the urn and uniform once they reach Earth to return Lance home to his family. Hunk squeezes the Altean in the tightest of hugs, babbling his thanks wetly into Coran’s chest and the sharp edges in Shiro’s eyes soften as he squeezes Coran’s shoulder appreciatively. Pidge herself, hugs his side the moment Hunk puts Coran down, whispering thanks, and Keith nods his head with the warmest expression ever seen from him. Coran returns every gesture as though sealing his promise to each of them, squeezing them all with a fond expression. Pidge dubs the room the memorial, saying that Lance would have done the same, and the team spends the rest of the morning appreciating the memorial of their deceased friend. The mice chitter on their shoulders, nuzzling the Paladins’ necks and cheeks, before they all hop onto Coran’s shoulder to grace him with a sweet nose kiss each.

They continue to spend the day together reminiscing, still without Allura, until Shiro urges them to the shared Lion hanger bay afterwards where they stand in front of the inactive, severely damaged Blue Lion with blocks of ice littered around her. Her sisters, Black, Red and Yellow, lay around surrounding her like a barrier though Black sits closer to Green. Chulatt, Pidge’s new little companion, releases a small squeak of dismay at the sight of Blue.

“…I don’t think Lance would want us to keep her like this.” Hunk says softly, reaching forward to touch the cold metal of Blue’s upper jaw resting on its side. “He loves her you know? Cleans her from top to bottom, going through all the spaces in between and even waxes her! He tries to do it every week and I don’t…I don’t think I can look at Blue if we keep her like this.”

“I wouldn’t want to face him and tell him that we didn’t fix up his ‘beautiful girl’.” Pidge hums in agreement, coming up behind him. She clears her throat. “He’d whine, won’t he? Whine our ears off if we do the other lions instead Blue. ‘Come on Pidgeon! My girl needs to be in tip-top shape! Chop chop!’”

“Only Coran says ‘chop chop’.”

“But Pidge is close enough.” Shiro chuckles softly, gazing sadly at the shell of the lion. “And Hunk’s right; We should…We should fix Blue up. Lance always took good care of her and we should do the same.”

“That reminds me number five—” Coran rolls his mustache between his fingers. “How is Green Lion faring?”

“She’s back online but…just barely. Her self-repair function hasn’t booted up, so she’s nowhere near ready for any kind of mission.” Pidge sighs, pushing her glasses up as she rubs her eyes. “I…I haven’t actually run a full diagnostic on her to find out where all the damage is. I’ve only been working inside her cockpit.”

“Well then!” Coran claps his hands, gazing at the Paladins. “Number five and I will go ahead to run a full diagnostic on Green Lion, while the rest of you chip the rest of the ice off Blue Lion. We won’t be able to do very much with Blue Lion until we get all the ice off her, but we may need to pull number two away for Green Lion’s repairs when we get the full diagnostic back.”

“Good idea. Alright, let’s do this team. Keith, Hunk, use your Lions to claw the ice, but slowly! Don’t dig too deeply into Blue’s hull. I’ll try to clear the cockpit out.”

Tasks assigned, the Paladins split up and Coran follows Pidge into the cockpit of Green as the other three Lions’ eyes gleam, watching their every move. She grimaces when she sees the mess of wires connecting her laptop to her Lion and catches a whiff of the stale smell of soured food goo and stinky sweat. Coran merely cheerfully suggests activating Green’s ventilation system with a wave of his hand and proceeds to sit by Pidge as she taps the keys of her laptop to work. They sit in silence as the diagnostic runs, Coran occasionally humming as his eyes sweep through the data of the still running report. With Green’s optics active, Pidge looks out of her Lion’s eyes to see Red and Yellow clawing off chunks of ice from the lower half of Blue’s body, her belly facing Green. Pidge bites down on her bottom lip, tearing her eyes away from the mangled body of Blue and stares at the growing list of damages on her screen.

“…Why did she do that?”

“What was that number five?”

“The Princess.” She says, small fists clenching tightly as they rest on her keyboard. Chulatt chitters, nosing her cheek in worry. “Why did she just…think it was ok to just cremate him without letting us know before she goes ahead and do it? Is it some Altean culture thing? What is this ‘Last Will’ she was talking about anyway?”

“No, it isn’t a part of the Altean culture.” Coran sighs, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps we should have told you this from the beginning, but when your predecessors, the first Paladins of Voltron, came in service of King Alfor and the Castle of Lions, one of the required protocols we set-up while inducting the new Paladins was to tell them to create and update their ‘Last Wills’ in case of…in case of the Paladin’s demise.”

“The Last Will protocol is basically the Paladin’s last message to their loved ones, to whom we are to relinquish their personal effects to, their final wishes and where their final resting place is to be.” Coran’s eyes dim as he stares off sadly into the distance. “I remember the first Paladins only updating their Last Wills once every…what is your Earth equivalent…month? Yes. Once every thirty quintants, maybe even longer because it was a time of peace. King Alfor sought to cover any holes in our protocols, so the first Paladins agreed that if the Last Will recording of a deceased Paladin cannot be found in ten quintants from the Paladin’s passing, the current commander of the Voltron Paladins may act as they see fit to lay them to rest.”

“I do not condone Allura’s actions.” He continues, his mustache flaring as his eyes harden. “I love her as though she were my own, but it was certainly unsightly and unbecoming of her; We weren’t even searching in these last quintants since Lance’s passing and ten quintants certainly hadn’t passed yet when she decided to act. Perhaps I have been far too gentle with her…allowing her such free reign. Granted her far too much power for one so young and not yet thoughtful to situations outside of war.”

Pidge watches, lips forming a tiny ‘o’ as Coran passionately rants. But as soon as he starts, he stops, eyes wearier than ever. He looks _old_. Tired.

“But I cannot bear to push her away.” He laments quietly. “I’ve already lost the boy I considered a son to me, I cannot lose the daughter I’ve raised since her tiny days.”

Chulatt hops off her shoulders as Pidge flings her arms around Coran’s middle, her laptop clattering onto the floor as she buries her face into his chest. The older Altean stiffens, but relaxes quickly, wrapping his own arms around her smaller body.

“I’m sorry-I just-you just looked a lot like my dad like that.” She whispers, pulling away as her bottom lip trembles. “He gets this look sometimes…after a really long day at work. That really tired look that makes you look a lot older, and you look like you need to _retire_ , go on a vacation—be anywhere but _here_.”

“But there is nowhere else I would rather be than here, little Pidge.” Coran’s wizen eyes crinkle further as he smiles, pulling her into another hug. “After all, I still have another four equally heartbroken children under my care. It will not do for me to abandon them in their time of need.”

“But who looks after you?” She lifts her head, chin resting on his chest as brown eyes searches violet surrounding green pupils. “If you look after us…who looks after you?”

Coran merely smiles at her, patting her head. An exact mirror of her father trying to ease her worries.

Pidge feels a sad, gentle nudge in her mind, and a familiar warmth spreads through her body. Green’s rumble is full of pain and despair; Pidge did not just lose her brother-figure, Green has lost her sister too. Their joy. Laughter. Love.

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

“I never gave Lance or Hunk the time of day back in the Garrison.” Pidge mumbles suddenly, lowering her chin to bury her face back into Coran’s chest. “I was just…there, to look for my dad and my brother. I just saw them as a part of the obstacles I had to run through to find the truth, never wanted to get to know them, got the whole team in trouble for not listening to orders or talking back to our superiors because it wasn’t why I was there.”

He pats her head gently, ruffling her hair as she closes her eyes. Green rumbles again.

“But Lance didn’t stop trying to bond with me, even though I always behaved…always behaved like some self-important brat. He’d take the fall for all our team failures even though I caused most of it, let all the commanders talk to him like he was less than dirt… How could any self-respecting person just…take all of that? And still _smile_ after all of it? He was this huge mess of a puzzle I didn’t want to poke even if I had a ten-foot pole to use.”

“Then…Voltron happened.” She lifts herself up to roll to the side, then flops to press her side against Coran’s. “Suddenly I had to open myself to him. But you know…during the mind meld training you put us through that first day? Lance was the only person who didn’t just barge into my head; even Shiro kind of just went in when the exercise started. All Lance did was send to me _his_ thoughts of his family. He just…kept a distance, like he was waiting for me to offer him in or something and if I didn’t, he’d just keep his distance.”

“Did it surprise you that much?”

“Yea, it did. I always thought he was the kind who’d just barge in without invitations.” Pidge admits sheepishly, feet slowly stretching out to prod her laptop back upright. Chulatt sits on the top of her keyboard, emitting a small squeak as the laptop shifts. “But then he…he started hanging around me, even though I always tell him to go bother someone else. I never thought that he’d be someone I could ever talk to because all he ever talks about is… _girls_. Space babes. Nothing else of interest. So, I never sought him out. But he still…he still comes around, making me go to bed, making sure I eat my meals… and tags along with me and helps me loot through fountains at the space mall to get Mercury Flux two just because…just because I said I wanted it. And when I got it, I noticed that he was…happy. Happy because I got what I wanted. Even helped me beg Hunk to make a converter to link the system to one of the video screens, then just spent the next few hours watching me play.” 

“Well, Hunk has mentioned that Lance has three younger siblings yes?” Coran smiles down at her. “And he apparently drops everything the moment they need him.”

Green purrs softly, and the gentle warm pulses gently in her chest.

“Yea, it does make sense when you take that background into consideration.” Pidge sighs, closing her eyes. “That’s when I started seeing more of Matt, my brother, whenever Lance came to hang out with me. After that…it just became normal. Everyday he’d come find me, ask me what nerdy geeky thing I was up to, nag at me for not sleeping properly then drag me off to play my games with me and…tuck me into bed. Somehow, I _always_ find myself in bed every morning even though I remember last being at my work station; at first, I thought Shiro was putting me to bed, but then Green showed me her video feeds and told me Lance was doing it. He’s always looking out for me, even though I didn’t appreciate it, didn’t even _think_ for a second that he’d be the one to do so. I started looking forward to him draping himself over my back when I’m working, more…more _willing_ to stop work and go play video games with him, and I’m not a touchy kind of person, but he spoils me with so much cuddles that I go looking for him for them! Suddenly, he wasn’t just… _Lance_ anymore, you know? He was more than just Lance to me, he became a brother, _my_ brother Lance.”

Tears slip from her eyes, but Pidge raises her arm, lifting her glasses off and presses her sleeve against her eyes. A small wet nose nudges her chin as small paws rest on her neck.

“He called me his beloved gremlin sister-brother, that he _loved me_ like his own flesh and blood.” She chokes, sniffling loudly. “I never thanked him for being there for me. I never thanked him for being the big brother I desperately missed, desperately _needed_. Now he’s gone… _gone_! Because I couldn’t hang in there long enough to protect my own back and he-he went and _sacrificed himself_ to keep me safe—”

She breathes in heavily, choking out sobs as Coran wraps his arm around her shoulders and presses her closer to his side. Pidge hiccups, rubbing her eyes furiously.

“It’s all my fault…”

Green rumbles in despair and the warmth from her Lion fades from her chest.

“ _No_.” Coran pushes her arm away, cupping her face as he stares firmly into her still tearing eyes. “Lance would never blame you. _Never_. He chose to protect you, even if it meant giving up his life. It is just as you said Pidge, he loves you like his own flesh and blood, and so he’ll protect you like he would to them. He protected you, for you to live, to find your father and brother. So _live_ , Katie Holt. Pidge Gunderson. _Live_ , find your family, and show him his sacrifice was not in vain.”

Pidge throws herself into Coran’s arms once more, sobbing as Green mourns with her in her mind. Coran hugs her close, one arm around her waist and one hand nestling at the back of her head, resting his cheek on the top of her head. Chulatt presses tiny nose kisses to her neck and rubs against her, squeaking sadly as the tears drip down onto its fur. Pidge murmurs ‘I want him _back_!’ as she cries into Coran’s chest, and he squeezes her closer as his own tears roll down his cheeks and murmurs ‘So do I’.

 

**~*~**

 

By the time the diagnostics on Green’s full damage is done, Blue is almost completely free of ice.

(Pidge finds out, while reading through the diagnostics report, that Green purposefully stalled the diagnostics and did not boot up her self-repair function the moment she came back online because she refuses to be worked on until Blue is free. She is half exasperated, half amused by her Lion’s actions.)

When she and Coran step out of Green with her laptop to meet Shiro, Hunk and Keith, Pidge does a double take of the thermostat when she sees the big chunks of ice littering the hanger bay floor.

“…Uh Coran? I don’t think I’m reading it wrong, but how can the temperature of the hanger bay still be at normal when there’s so much ice in here?”

“Oh?” Coran’s brows climb up his forehead and follows her gaze to the thermostat. “Hmm…I see what you mean. Curious! Now that you’ve mentioned it, I seem to recall the bay being much colder when we were first cutting off the ice from Blue Lion…”

Her brows furrow and she swipes a piece of the crystal ice from the floor to examine as they walk closer to Blue. To her surprise, the crystal ice isn’t too cold to the touch and does not feel wet. Chulatt, still riding on her shoulder, hops down to her hands and squeaks in awe as it scampers over the crystal ice, paws scratching and patting in wonderment. Pidge’s frown deepens when she sees her fellow Paladins brush sweaty bangs from their foreheads and drink deeply from their water packets as they rest next to the gaping hole on the top of Blue’s resting head. As they step closer, Pidge can see that the cockpit seems clear and the outside hull too seems to be free of the ice, and the males’ mice companions Chuchule, Plachu and Platt nestle in the lump of towels next to where they sit.

“Hey, we’re almost done.” Shiro greets as Hunk hands Pidge and Coran water packets. “We just have the inside of Blue’s stomach to clear, I think it’s her…core?”

“Ah, yes! Her quintessence core.” Coran confirms in between his sips. “That will be our biggest challenge to fix. I don’t believe that we’ve ever had a situation where a Lion has been this severely damaged, have their quintessence core exposed like this, or the possibility of the quintessence core being empty. We must handle Blue Lion delicately. So, please cut the ice around it with care Paladins, if it’s damaged or worse, completely empty as I fear, I daresay we’ll have an even bigger problem we will not be able to fix.”

“Right, we’ll do that. How’s Green?”

“My bratty lion apparently deactivated her self-repair function when she came back online.” Pidge deadpans, rolling her eyes when Green rumbles a grumble out loud behind her. She swears she hears a huff of amusement from Black. “I convinced her to turn it back on so she’s repairing slowly. Thankfully, it looks like the only real issues we have to deal with is to replace the mechanisms in my flight controls, consoles, seal up the gaps in her hull and do a full check of her systems.”  
  
“We also have to replace some of her parts, but luckily we have the required parts in the castle so we don’t have to worry about parts hunting!” Coran says cheerily, rolling his mustache between his fingers. “If you are agreeable to continue working, once you clear the ice from her core, number five and I will check if Blue Lion powers up and attempt to run a full diagnostic from her cockpit.”

Shiro chooses to continue working and offers Keith and Hunk a respite that the two teenagers refuse. A fond smile tugs at Pidge’s lips as the trio pick up their discarded tools and head to Blue’s exposed side. Coran offers her a little wink and they crawl into the gaping hole on Blue’s head to connect her laptop to her system, all four mice scampering up Pidge’s clothes to follow them. The mice catch their attention once they finish connecting the wires, urging Pidge and Coran to play a game of charades—a game she knows Lance taught them so that they could entertain the Princess during their downtimes—with them as the other Paladins work on clearing the last bits of ice. Pidge laughs as they scamper around, acting out things that only Coran can identify. They squeak in glee when she laughs, scampering over her and drown her in their little tiny nose kisses with their whiskers tickling her skin, making her laugh harder. A low chuckle from outside the hole on Blue’s head makes her look up, and the mice on her shoulders exchange smug looks when they see Shiro, whose eyes have only been full of pain and despair in the last few days, peer into Blue’s cockpit with a gentle twinkle in his eyes.  He gives her a thumbs up, tilting his head in the direction of Blue’s body with a nod, and Pidge snatches up her laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard. After keying in a series of codes, she jams the enter button and holds her breath.

The cockpit remains silent and she expels her breath with a sigh of resignation while trying to not cringe when she catches sight of Shiro’s eyes dimming. Of course Blue is too damaged to power up.

Suddenly, a shout from Keith outside Blue startles them.

“What the fuck?”

“Uh, Coran? We’ve never really seen any of the Lion’s quintessence core thingies, but Blue’s core just started glowing!”

Coran exits Blue’s cockpit in record speed with Pidge and Shiro hurrying along behind him. Pidge’s jaw drops when she sees the older Altean man _scale up_ the shoulders of the battered Lion lying on its side with his bare—gloved really—hands at an incredible speed; even with Blue laying on her side, she is still quite high to climb and Coran looks like a demented blue and orange lizard against the dull grey and blue metal from the floor. She has a sudden urge to take a photograph of him like that, but the moment he disappears over the top, Pidge snaps back to reality and makes the climb up with Shiro. Coran is squatting at the edge of the gaping hole in Blue’s left side with Keith and Hunk looking down at the core in worry, when Shiro and Pidge rush over.

“She is active…?”

Blue’s quintessence core is pulsing weakly with soft baby blue light. Faint, but enough that it illuminates the inside of her stomach the same soft color. Pidge, ever curious, kneels beside Coran and reaches out to the gentle glow. Just as Coran reaches to grab her hand back, a tendril of blue reaches out to her from the glowing core and curls over her fingers, weaving between them and slithers over her palm. Her skin feels a cool sensation and a familiar warmth fills her chest as the tendril slides over her skin before it retreats to the quintessence core, leaving wisps of blue dancing across her hand. She brings it up closer to her face, admiring the dissipating wisps from her fingers and the warmth in her chest fades along with them. Pidge immediately sticks her hand back towards the glowing core, ignoring the tugging from her teammates, desperate the feel the warmth once more and feels the gentle tickle of the tendril gliding across her skin again. When the warmth fills her chest again, she feels it deeper, and connects to it.

It feels like Lance when he sits her on his lap and envelopes her in his arms, pressing his nose to her hair and ensconces her with his body. Comforting. Gentle. Warm. Loving.

_My brother_ , Pidge wants to weep, but the gentle warmth of the blue tendril presses the feeling away and an additional feeling sweeps through her as the tendril retreats once more from her hand. Protective.

“Pidge?”

“Does—” She swallows, staring down at her hand as the remaining wisps of blue fade and the protective warmth flees along with it. “—does touching quintessence always give you…a warm feeling?”

“I cannot confirm that for you.” Coran begins shakily, grasping her wrist and pushes it towards her chest. “Quintessence…quintessence is life energy, and the readings of research from my forefathers note that it was…highly unadvisable to come in direct contact with quintessence or stay in constant contact with quintessence. This is an unprecedented situation Paladins; I did not expect it to be active since Allura made it clear that she is not able to sense the Blue Lion with her life force, but with Blue Lion’s quintessence core active, we will need to begin mending the mechanism that creates the barrier to her core and mend the hole in her side immediately. I don’t know what will happen if we are continuously exposed to her quintessence, no matter how weak it may seem right now, and I do not want to put you at unnecessary risk. Number five, this means that you are forbidden from reaching out to Blue Lion’s core again.”

“But it doesn’t feel malicious!” Pidge argues, defiance in her eyes. “It’s _warm_! It’s comforting, gentle—”

“It feels like _Lance_.” She ends expelling a shaky breath, looking to each of them.

“Be as that may—”

Coran abruptly stops when Keith kneels beside Pidge, expression full of rebellious spirit, and sticks his hand out to the pulsing blue core. The royal Altean advisor emits a strange strangling noise akin to the dying moan of a whale from his throat as the blue tendril almost curiously pokes at Keith’s hand before wrapping around his fingers and wrist. It wrestles with Keith’s thumb, almost playful, but when Keith tries to squeeze it, it slithers back into the core where it pulses at a quicker rate. Almost as though laughing at him.

“…It feels cool to touch.” He whispers, looking down at his hand, then at Pidge. “And I got this really…warm feeling in my chest. Felt kind of…teasing I guess.”

“ _Paladins_.” Coran wheezes, grabbing onto the back of Keith and Pidge’s jacket and shirt respectively and pulls them away from the gaping hole in Blue’s side. “Please do not give me what you humans call a heart attack!”

Pidge, visibly more contrite than Keith, mumbles apologies to Coran. The Altean simply carries on, directing Shiro and Keith to fetch spare metal pieces in preparation to fix the hole in Blue’s side, and urges her and Hunk to put on their Paladin armors before they proceed to go into Blue’s stomach to fix her quintessence core barrier. As Coran shoos Shiro and the rebellious looking Keith off Blue, Pidge crouches to touch the metal of her body beneath her feet. Her eyes widen when she feels a soft, gentle warmth emitting from the previously cold metal, and pats the spot tentatively. Hunk crouches down beside her and strokes the warm metal.

“It’s like Blue’s trying to tell us not to worry.” Hunk says softly, widening his strokes. “Kind of like Lance, you know? He’ll be fussing over us even though he’s the one with the torn side and bleeding all over the place. It feels as though Blue’s mimicking him.”

“I seem recall him baiting a certain red Paladin into reporting to the pod chambers for his minor injuries first even though he himself had a dislocated shoulder, fractured ankle and concussion.” Coran says blandly with a twinkle in his eyes, making Hunk and Pidge giggle. “But now, off you go you two! On with the armor and let’s at least get the barrier to Blue Lion’s quintessence core up! Otherwise it’s the Paladin Dinner for you lot!”

As Pidge and Hunk scramble away, mice squeaking in laughter at their expression of horror and disgust, the glowing core behind Coran pulses quickly in sync with the squeaking of the mice, then reverts to the rhythm of a steady heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> （＊〇□〇）……！
> 
> I swear I love them. I really do. The next chapter is going to be a headache though Σ（￣□￣；）  
> Thanks for reading folks!


	5. Commander vs. Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura walks in the wrong direction. At least she has Coran to try guiding her down the correct direction.
> 
> _"She forgets that Coran has been her father’s Royal Advisor for decafeebs, even before her birth; he has a wealth of wisdom and knowledge she has yet to tap on, yet she chooses to shoulder the burdens with her own headstrong manner lacking the subtle tact grieving requires for everyone to heal just to avoid dealing with her own feelings._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allura Allura! We find out something more~  
> And it's Lance's birthday! Happy birthday blue boy! 
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Commander vs. Girl**

**~*~**

 

The common misconception every alien species Team Voltron comes across makes, is that Allura is the eldest, wisest and most knowledgeable of them. But in truth, Allura is young, inexperienced—just like her Paladins—and armed with knowledge ten thousand years too old to be trusted completely without question; she just chooses not to correct the misconception and the Paladins don’t do so either.  After all, Allura is the authority in the Castle of Lions and the team is generally quite amenable to her orders. She is Allura, Princess of Altea and commander of Voltron.

Until that quintant.

True to her word, Pidge does not acknowledge Allura or follow any orders she issues during battle or even answer to Allura’s summons, going as far as to mute Allura’s voice from her comms. Keith outright defies every single one of Allura’s orders, only obeying Shiro’s commands and calls, and his normal awkward greetings to her have become hostile snarls. He is more protective of his fellow Paladins, destroying their enemy fleets swiftly and viciously on the battlefield, and erects himself as a physical wall between them and her whenever they cross paths. Hunk’s gentle, yet anxious smiles, ceases its existence to her and only she receives unfeeling stares in greeting from the normally warm and comforting giant. Shiro is patient and remains cordial with her whenever they are discussing the next mission; he is the only Paladin willing to speak to her, and even then, he only speaks to her about missions and the Galra Empire. Coran, while still amicable to her, has lost much of his jovial spirit when around her presence. He regales fewer tales of his youth with her father to Allura and rarely brings up their long-destroyed planet to invoke her memories to remember alongside with her.

The Lions remain silent in her mind. Even the mice abandon her, physically and mentally.

Yet Allura holds her head high, ignoring the strife between her and the Paladins, and focuses every bit of her attention to the Mission, staunchly remaining in the mindset of the militant commander of Voltron. She cannot afford to become distracted; the Mission was paramount over the triviality of feelings. Sentimentality has no place in the Castle. Allura allocates her time as such, no longer sitting with the Paladins for meals or spending time with them off mission times. Day in and day out, she draws and works out plans for Voltron to use against the Galra Empire. She no longer cares what her Paladins do in their spare time, or what work they may do to upgrade the Lions to give them an edge in battle, so long as they continue to work satisfactorily during training sessions and on the battlefield, Allura will make no complaints, but she will most certainly criticize them for every mistake—both major and the most minor of mistakes—that she can see and demands of them to work harder. _Everything_ must be done with perfection!

(They visibly tune out the moment she opens her mouth, so her criticisms and demands falls to deaf ears.)

Despite the turmoil within the walls of the Castle of Lions, Allura is still able to portray a calm and cool façade in the presence of their new allies outside of it. The Paladins are cordial in these meetings with planet locals, but only Shiro will stand close by to her while the other three will stand far behind them or even just remain in their Lions the moment she lands on the planet. Eventually, the planets take notice of the lack of Voltron itself and the absence of their illustrious Blue Paladin, and questions of Voltron’s stability begin to rise amongst the planets. When one planet’s natives present the question to Allura during their negotiations, there is scarcely a wobble in her response.

“Due to Blue Paladin’s recent poor health, he has been released from his duties as Paladin of Voltron so he may rest. In due time, Blue Lion will choose her next Paladin and the full Voltron team will be present again.”

And so, the rumor spreads between planets of Voltron’s quest to find another Blue Paladin and with every species Team Voltron comes across, many offer themselves to take up the mantle. No one can know that they had lost their Blue Paladin to the Galra, she insists when Shiro questions her, it shows weakness of the ranks of Voltron that they cannot afford to show. They cannot lose credibility with the planets and she forbids the Paladins from ever speaking about their deceased Blue Paladin and the circumstances of the damaged Blue Lion. Even though he reluctantly abides by her orders, from then on, Shiro’s patience with her visibly wanes with every completed mission and his tone turns stern and curt. So, Allura clings onto the Mission, her only secure lifeline remaining as she is tossed and pulled by the currents of turmoil that threatens to overwhelm her. Once Blue Lion’s repairs are complete, Allura begins accepting candidates for the Blue Paladin without inputs from the team still at odds with her. The entire team is unreceptive to her plans, all utterly discontent as she views candidate after candidate without allowing them to contribute. Even though Shiro and Hunk are vaguely cordial towards them, Keith and Pidge show outright hostility towards her candidates during introductions. Many candidates are quick to catch on of the Paladin’s discontentment and decline to proceed with Allura’s trials until she finally wises up and avoids introducing candidates to the Paladins up front until after the candidate passes the final test. But no matter how stringent Allura is in selecting her candidates, Blue Lion’s particle barrier never wavers and her eyes remain dark whenever the Princess sends them to her for their final acceptance test.

(Allura is only one who was not present when Blue Lion first returns to full functionality and merely assumes the Paladins have finally ‘stopped being lazy’ and cleared the chunks and shards of crystal ice left littered on the floor since freeing Blue Lion from her tomb of ice when she sweeps into the clean shared hanger bay after Coran informs her of Blue Lion’s activity.)

After Blue Lion rejects the nth candidate, Allura makes yet another executive decision in her frustration; she declares herself to become Blue Lion’s new Paladin to the team, much to the team’s displeasure. Without any delay, she marches to hanger bay after her announcement and attempts to connect to Blue Lion as her Paladin, and reconnect to her to her life force to close the gap in her conscious when the Lion was first lost.

Blue Lion is stoic and still in the hanger bay, sitting on her haunches with her head staring straight ahead and her particle barrier active ever since returning to functionality, when Allura purposefully strides into the hanger bay with her head held high. But when Allura presses her hand against the glowing blue barrier, with the other Paladins and Coran watching her from the entrance of the bay, the barrier does not dissipate. Frustration rolls through her body as she smacks her hand down against the barrier, glaring up at Blue Lion, and orders her to release her particle barrier. Without her life force connection to the Blue Lion, Allura is met with silence. The militant commander in her seethes at the Lion’s disrespect—how can she, the Princess of Altea, not be worthy to pilot the Blue Lion? The friendliest and most accepting of all the Lions? —but the young heartbroken girl in her weeps at the rejection. Black Lion snarls in her portion of Allura’s mind in clear displeasure when her livid thoughts spread to the Lions; Red, Green and Yellow Lions follow up with growls of their own, but Allura chooses to ignore the Lions, as their hackles rise and they begin stepping closer towards her and Blue Lion, and continues banging her fist against the blue barrier so hard that the energy surrounding Blue Lion ripples like waves of a pebble dropping into a pond. Shiro stops her from continuously hammering Blue Lion’s particle barrier with her fists—she demands Blue Lion to think of the universe that needs Voltron as she does this, that they cannot afford her to be so _ridiculously_ picky or they would doom planets and civilizations—and firmly impresses the truth onto her that she does not want to believe.

Blue Lion does not want Allura as her Paladin; Allura obviously does not measure up to her previous Paladin, Lance, for Blue Lion to even refuse to bend her head down to meet Allura’s eyes. The judging stares of the remaining Paladins and Lions surrounding her becomes too much that she storms off; the militant commander seethes in her quarters while the hurt girl cries. Coran does not soothe her wounded soul with sweetly coated excuses when he sees her next, instead he points out to her, still surprisingly gentle, that her current attitude and treatment of the Paladins does not represent any of the traits of the ideal Paladin Blue Lion seeks; traits she never did reveal to the Paladins in her first encounter with them. Furious with the implications, she demands an explanation from him that Coran gladly divulges.

“You show no trust or faith in your Paladins by acting out on your own without inviting their thoughts and views.” Coran says with the sternness of a father, eyes gazing at her with such firmness that reminds Allura of her father when he is displeased with her that she straightens her posture at his tone. “You have also severed their trust in you by your actions; disposing of the body of their fellow Paladin without consulting them about the cultures their planet has in respect to their dead, not allowing them last moments with him, and refusing to listen to their pleas to you to allow them to send him home? Trust and faith go both ways Princess, because of your lack of trust and faith in your Paladins, they in return do not trust you or have faith in you. As of late, you are far from gentle with them, perhaps due to the lack of trust and faith in your Paladins and them in you, and you have certainly made it very clear that your loyalty is only to the mission to end the reign of the Galra Empire no matter if it costs us the Paladins’ lives. Blue Lion’s traits are about trust, faith, gentleness, loyalty, and above all, love. You may try to push a potential candidate you believe to be ideal to Blue Lion to take as her Paladin, but ultimately, your standards are not hers. You cannot think that the Lions’ are completely receptive to a Paladin of your choosing Allura, we were very much very lucky that the Lions accepted our current Paladins as you designated them. It is unfortunate, but you are not Blue Lion’s ideal candidate as her Paladin at this point Princess, because you are the exhibiting the exact opposite of the traits she desires the most in her ideal Paladin.”

“Blue Lion may be considered the friendliest and most accepting of the Lions, but she certainly can tell who is not suitable to become her Paladin.”

He does not wait for her to argue back or dismiss him, and simply leaves her stewing in her quarters for a good few vargas until he calls her to the dining room for her evening meal. The moment she catches sight of the Paladins at the table, she spins on her heel to leave, but stops when she hears Coran clear his throat loudly. Militant commander Allura demands to walk away from the disrespectful Paladins not worth her time, but young, hurt girl Allura craves the closeness of her friends to abate the pain of loss. While Allura struggles internally, Coran guides her to sit at the head of the table, eying the Paladins and her sternly.

“I believe this has gone on for long enough Allura.” He says. “It’s time you explained yourself to us young lady, on why you’ve been acting like a sulking thermyok. And don’t you tell me that you are not required to explain your reasons for your actions and behavior.”

“ _What is there to explain_ _?!_ ” She snaps, shoulders tensing as she glares at the equally angry Paladins. “ _Their disrespect led to this, I see no reason for me to explain myself!_ _”_

“They’re only returning the disrespect you first started giving to them.” Coran replies sharply. “Such disrespect as you are doing now by speaking in Altean that they are unable to understand! Your behavior is unbecoming of your status as the Princess of Altea Allura, and I am _ashamed_ of you.”

Allura freezes, staring up at Coran with a mixture of disbelief and betrayal, but there is no joviality or cheeriness in the eyes that stare back at her. The stern, unflinching, stone-cold stare of King Alfor’s most trusted Royal Advisor replaces the exterior of the spirited, crazy-yet-adoringly-loving uncle figure the entire team has come to seek out when in need of cheer. Easy to underestimate, but foolhardy to cross. In her mad craze to severe off the pain of losing yet another person dear to her to the Galra, she forgets that Coran has been her father’s Royal Advisor for decafeebs, even before her birth; he has a wealth of wisdom and knowledge she has yet to tap on, yet she chooses to shoulder the burdens with her own headstrong manner lacking the subtle tact grieving requires for everyone to heal just to avoid dealing with her own feelings. Allura remembers her father warning her never to cross the line with Coran, that despite how jovial and kind he may always portray himself to be and dote on her as though she were his own flesh and blood, he is also the _worst_ person to anger. Despite his anger, his voice never rises above his normal speaking volume, and eyes full of tumultuous fury with a gaze that can freeze individuals cold replaces normally warm eyes with hints of mischief and good cheer. She understands her father’s warning now; clearly, the one to truly fear is Coran.

Under the purposeful stare of the Royal Advisor, Allura feels her youth and inexperience surface and expose itself over her skin. All the rage, irritation, haughtiness, sharpness and sulkiness melt away from her being as the militant commander of Voltron falls back, breaking the façade, and the hurt young girl emerges. She drops her gaze to the table, like a child being chastised by their parent for their woefully terrible behavior, but she hasn’t the opening, nor the words, to begin and awkward silence fills the room.

Then the mice scamper down the shoulders of the Paladins to the table, and stands just under her gaze. Chulatt squeaks up at her, tiny paws combing down her fur on the top of her head to resemble the short locks of Lance’s hair, and lays flat on her back clasping her claws together at her front. Chuchule smooths down her own fur in wavy motions, straightening up and angles her nose high while facing Chulatt’s body. Platt lifts Chulatt up as Plachu makes many paw waves in semi-circular manner, then Platt moves forward and rests Chulatt by Plachu’s side, with Chuchule still watching them, and Plachu wiggles his paws all over Chulatt before covering her body with his own. A nudge in her mind, a feeling Allura has not felt in many spicolion movements, startles her and a single word in Altean echoes in her brain as Chuchule stares up at her with the sternest of stares a mouse can give.

_Why?_

Why indeed.

“I—” Allura says softly, a stark contrast to the loud, commanding and demanding tone she’d been using throughout the past spicolion movements since Lance’s death that the mice strain to hear her. “—just thought it would be prudent to cremate him.”

“But _why_?”

Hunk’s question, with a tone so sharp and acidic, stabs her straight in the chest; the one emphasized word lodges itself deep into her chest and the dripping acid burns the surrounding and widens the cavity bit by bit. She expects Keith or Pidge, maybe even Shiro, to demand the answer from her in that manner, not Hunk; it throws her off completely and she easily conjures the image of a cold, angry expression on the normally gentle Paladin’s face that looks so out of place and menacingly unpleasant—Yellow Lion chooses to plough through her mind at that point, furious that Allura would even _imagine_ the Lion’s beloved Paladin looking as such and leaves her reeling in the wake of her rampage—that she shivers involuntarily. The mice squeak as well, but Platt nudges her this time, far gentler than Chuchule as he scampers to her and lays his belly on the back of her hand. Allura takes a moment to pet him, running the pads of her fingers across his back as the yellow mouse gently nudges her mind. She still struggles, her tongue is heavy in her mouth, not quick, slivery, or smooth as she normally is in articulating herself in diplomatic missions. Platt squeaks again, nudging the finger stroking him with his cheek and peers up to give her a tiny mousey smile. With her gaze still training on the mice, she tries.

“I-I couldn’t-I just couldn’t—”

Loud aggressive tapping on the dining table makes Allura flinch, but as soon as it begins, it stops. She doesn’t dare to lift her head to see whatever is transpiring around her; while tense silence is still prevalent in the room, Allura knows she still needs to give an answer or Coran will not let her, or the Paladins, leave until she gives it. One tick, two ticks. The impatient militant commander begins pressing against her conscious once more, deeming this ‘talk’ a waste of time and demands to continue working; the Galra Empire was not going to give them the luxury of time to deal with frivolity of feelings, but the hurt girl starts lashing back, no longer hiding the dark recesses of her mind. Three ticks, four ticks. The lock on the box that seals her emotions, done by the militant commander, rattles violently as her two personas fight for dominance. Five ticks, six ticks. The hurt girl claws and screams at the impassive militant commander as cracks emerge from the rattling lock. Seven ticks, eight ticks. Her father materializes in her mind watching her fighting personas, with eyes so sad and with wrinkles so prominent sinking deep into his face making him look so much older that the militant commander hesitates and is overthrown by the hurt girl. Nine ticks, ten ticks.

The lock shatters and the box flies open.

“I COULDN’T HANDLE IT!” She screams, the mice scampering away from her as she smashes her fists down onto the table so hard it shudders and a crack appears from where her fists impact. “I couldn’t handle the thought that if I had listened to him, made changes to our plan as he suggested, I wouldn’t have sent him to his death! I couldn’t handle the thought that I killed him! Because I was too proud of my own skills and didn’t believe that he had anything useful to contribute to the plans! I toiled over these plans for vargas, quintants, spicolion movements! They should have been perfect! The Galra should never have been able to dissect the plans or have enough time to spread the word so quickly to their forces with how widespread they were and with how randomly we chose our targets! It should still have worked for at least two more missions before we needed to start using a different plan!”

“I thought too highly of us, too lowly of them, and Lance paid the price for my decision! I couldn’t handle that I killed one of my own Paladins! I _couldn’t_! His body being preserved in the pod chambers just became a constant reminder of my failure! I couldn’t look at him, or any of you without feeling the weight of it crushing me! I just-I just needed it gone! I didn’t want the reminder, I just wanted to move on and forget it ever happened! So-so I just disposed of his body and hoped it was enough!”

“Why didn’t you just let us take him home then?”

Shiro’s question is soft, almost soothing after her series of high pitch screams finishes bouncing off the walls of the dining room. Again, Allura bangs her fists on the table and the crack widens.

“HOW CAN I FACE HIS FAMILY AND TELL THEM MY CARELESSNESS KILLED THEIR SON?!”

She chokes on her sobs and tears, the waterfall of tears withheld since that quintant, finally falls. Burying her face in her hands, Allura weeps, finally grieving for the boy so like an infuriating little brother she never had but wished for once upon a time.

“How can I? How _would_ I? I couldn’t bear to imagine his parents crumbling as I tell them that their son has died…I couldn’t. I _just couldn’t_. I wanted to stop _feeling_.”

“I don’t buy this bullshit!” Pidge shouts and Allura hears the screech of a chair moving against the floor. “Just because you don’t want to face your feelings, it doesn’t mean you had any right to act like you did! You defiled him! We’re all hurting here, but you, oh high and mighty Princess of a dead species, decides no, fuck it. I don’t want to deal with my feelings so everyone else takes a back seat to it and I’ll do what shit I want to make sure I don’t feel it! Well fuck you! You might have been the fucking royalty of Altea and can get away with all the shit you want to do, but don’t expect us to accept every fucking thing you want to do! We’re not _your_ people, we’ll _never_ be your people, so stop thinking we’ll just turn a blind eye and let you do whatever the hell you want! I _hate_ you! I _fucking hate_ you! You may not want to remember Lance, but I fucking hell do! We all do! And you know what? Even if you did become a Paladin, you’d _never_ be half the Paladin Lance was! You’ll _never_ take his place!”

“I’m done with this shit!” The youngest Paladin continues. “Just because she’s explaining why she did what she did, doesn’t make it right! It doesn’t make me hate her less! Because it’s all done. _DONE_! It’s not going to bring Lance back, it’s not going to erase all the rumors she’s spread and all the damn decisions she’s made, it’s not going to erase the fact that she tried to replace him, and then tried to take his place and still threw a hissy fit when Blue didn’t put her barrier down! I’m _done_! I’m done with her idiotic ‘standards’, done with her fucking big picture, and I’m so fucking done with _her_!”

The table rattles with a bang, but Allura doesn’t hear any footsteps. She does though, feel her connection with Green Lion mute. She cautiously lifts her tear streaked face up and sees that Pidge has in fact left, Chulatt is missing as well, and the remaining Paladins and mice present have an array of different emotions across their faces. Hunk stands, his expression neutral but closer to the side of cold, as Platt chitters unhappily on his shoulder.  
  
“I understand what you’re feeling, but Pidge is right; what you did…what you’ve _been_ doing, it’s all _wrong_ and inexcusable. Lance…Lance means _the world_ to me. He’s the only person who’s kept me sane throughout this crazy war you dragged us into. Now he’s gone, and half my soul’s gone with him; he’s been my best friend since we were kids, my soul brother, through thick and thin he’s been there for me even though I’m not always there for him. So, I can’t. I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done and for disrespecting his memory.”

He walks away, steps soft, and Yellow Lion mutes her connection. Keith is the next to rise, Chuchule perching on his shoulder as she raises her nose up, and she feels the dark rumble from Red Lion through their link.

“I don’t trust you.” He growls, eyes lit with fire so hot Allura flinches backwards. Keith’s entire body is tense and shaking, and he’s visibly holding himself back. “I would’ve agreed with you any other day that we needed to concentrate on saving the universe if the team was slacking off, but we _weren’t_! Mourning doesn’t equal slacking off! Just because you see it that way, doesn’t mean we do. We’ve lost a comrade, a friend, a brother, someone we love; Pidge loves Lance, Hunk loves Lance, I’m sure Coran loves him and even Shiro loves him.”

“ _I_ love him.” Keith’s growl drops to a whisper, and his shoulders slump forward. “I miss him. I miss him _so_ _much_. I want him back and I’d do _anything_ to hear him insult my hair if it meant that he’s breathing, alive and _here_.”

“I wonder if you’ve ever loved him, or if he and us are just replaceable pawns to you.”

Keith’s parting shot deepens the hole already gouged in her heart and Red Lion shoves her with an unhappy growl before she too goes mute.

Shiro watches her with a critical eye, the same gaze he holds while they normally go through plans to execute against the Galra. Plachu, who is settled comfortably on Shiro’s shoulder, watches her with the same critical gaze.

“Do you really believe all the guilt rests solely on you?”

Allura stares at him, but even as she opens her mouth to speak, Shiro cuts her off.

“I’m equally guilty of not listening to him to make changes to the plans as he suggested. I did the same thing you did; dismissed his thoughts and placed every bit of my trust in your plans because I held your opinion and ideas above his. Do I feel guilty? Of course I do! I sent him to his death right by your side Allura. We made the decision together and it cost him his life; it almost cost us Pidge’s life too. I want to stop feeling that guilt too, I want to stop thinking of the ‘what ifs’, but Pidge is right, it’s all done.”

“I don’t know how you’ve been able to sleep at night.” He says softly, eyes full of pain. “I can’t. My nightmares aren’t of the arena, or the Galra anymore. Instead, I see missions where Lance dies in every single one of them because I always fail to listen to him, and I even kill him with my own bare hands in some of them. I felt a need to make sure the others were still around, to make sure they were alive. I’ve already failed Lance, that loud annoying, but thoughtful little brother who wormed his way into my heart without me knowing as we continued fighting this war. I can’t fail Keith, Pidge and Hunk too, so I admit my mistakes and make myself learn from it to never do it again. I can’t let anyone else _die_. Talking about how you feel…it’s a good first step; we’ve all already talked out our feelings for Lance, and we’ve been making our peace with him. But you…you haven’t, not with us, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t done so with Coran either. We don’t trust you anymore because all you’ve been doing for the past three months is just stepping on all of us like our feelings didn’t matter. We can’t make peace with you because you barricaded us out.”

“They’re not ready to give you another chance, but I’m willing to give you one to earn my trust back.” Shiro meets her eyes with unwavering resolve. “Because I came to learn that Lance loves, he loved us _all_ and that includes you. Sure, he’d sulk for a day or two if he were unhappy with any of us, but ultimately, he still comes back to pull us all together. He loved us like another family he could turn to, and I know he’d be upset that we’ve broken apart like this. But I need you to make the effort Allura, this can’t be one-sided. You made me leader for a reason, I’m not going to just agree with everything you say anymore. I have to look out for my team, my space family. I _can’t lose_ any more of them. I want to trust you again, but I need you to work _with_ me, not against me like I’m your enemy.”

“You locked me out too.” She says, voice wobbling as Black Lion presses against her conscious.

“Only after you started lying to all our allies about what happened to Lance because you told me you didn’t want Voltron to show weakness.” He counters, eyes hardening. “You already weren’t listening to me outside of drawing plans to defeat the Galra Princess, it looked as though you already locked me out when you decided to dispose of Lance’s body at your own discretion.”

They lapse into silence. Plachu’s nose twitches as Shiro holds Allura’s gaze until she breaks the gaze, looking down at her fumbling fingers.

“I’ll leave you to make that decision.” Shiro sighs after a while, and she hears the chair scraping the floor. “It’s pointless for me to approach you if you’re not willing to go through with it. Thank you for the meal Coran, I really appreciate your hard work.”  

When he leaves, Black Lion rumbles in her mind, nudging her once more before muting.

Even with Coran still standing behind her, Allura feels even more alone that ever.

 

**~*~**

 

She excuses herself from the empty dining room without eating a single spoon of goo. Wandering aimlessly around the quiet castle, heart heavy and exhaustion clinging to her being, Allura ends up in the shared hanger bay. She hears the Lions stir, feeling each of them watch her carefully as she treads to Blue Lion. Red Lion rumbles her discontent, growls growing louder with each step Allura takes forward to Blue Lion. Black Lion releases a huff and Red Lion’s growls lower in volume, but Allura still feels the chill of the head of Voltron’s eyes bearing holes in her side. She stops in front of the glowing blue barrier and lifts a quivering hand up to press against it. The energy ripples softly at her touch, but the barrier does not dissipate. She sighs, shoulders sagging and drops her hand back to her side as she looks up to the unmoving head of Blue Lion.

_“I wonder if you’ve ever loved him, or if he and us are just replaceable pawns to you.”_

Keith’s words haunt her, tossing doubt in every thought she has when she thinks of the Paladins, both live and dead. Allura delves deeper into her mind as four Lions probe her, one insistent to chase her away, two others uncertain of her being there while the last exudes calm and patience to her. She believes that she does not think them replaceable like parts of a machine that have worn out in time and needs new improved parts to function. Yet, she also knows that she has not been expressive enough to show them this. Why else would they conclude that she does not care of them? Does she love them? Did she love Lance as much as the Paladins still do?

Allura wonders if she really did, _does_ , as she flips through her memories. She has fondness for them, an attachment, but did she love them?

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

But with absolute certainty, she knows that Lance did love them all.

“I’ve…wronged everyone haven’t I?”

Blue Lion remains silent while the other Lions rumble lowly.

“I’ve been so selfish in my desire to forget the pain that I’ve pushed everyone else away.”

Red Lion snorts.

“I’ve hurt them, all of them, even Coran.”

Yellow Lion growls.

“Perhaps I’m not so different from the Paladins.”

Green Lion huffs.

“Too young, too inexperienced, lacking tact, lacking wisdom, lacking guidance.”

Black Lion hums.

“Perhaps it was for the best that you rejected me. With my behavior…I’m certainly not worthy to pilot the Lion of love.” She sighs once more, dropping her gaze to the floor. “Maybe not even worthy to call myself the Commander of Voltron.”

A soft rumble sounds from above her and she gasps when the shadows on the floor move, looking up to see Blue Lion’s head tilt downwards, bright active yellow eyes stare at her. The other Lions rumble as well, all of them standing on all fours as Blue Lion brings her head down closer to Allura, but does not lower her particle barrier. She releases another rumble towards Allura, then huffs, jerking her head towards the other Lions and then to the door of the hanger bay. Blue Lion noses her particle barrier down towards Allura, then rises back up and returns to her original position. Without the bond to her lifeforce, Allura remains frozen on the spot, her face twisting in confusion. Black Lion rumbles, treading forward and noses the blue barrier, then nudges the edges of Allura’s mind.

_Princess needed elsewhere._

_Must heal._

_Mend family._

_Forgiven._

Shakily, she presses her hands against the barrier as her vision blurs with tears.

“How can you forgive me so easily?”

Blue Lion purrs, then goes silent as her eyes dim back to black. Black Lion nudges Allura once more.

_In you, we trust, have faith and love._

Allura leans forward and presses her forehead against the cool barrier.

“ _Thank you_.” She whispers moments later as tears drip down her cheeks, pressing a kiss to the barrier before she sweeps out of the hanger bay with her back straight and eyes set in determination.

 

 

Allura, a girl from Altea, greets the Paladins and Coran the next morning in the dining room with her long locks shorn off to just above her shoulders and reaches out to them despite their hostility. Even though only Shiro returns her greeting with the smallest of smiles, Allura can see Coran’s eyes light up with pride as he slides a plate of goo in front of her. She finds a piece of her broken heart lifting back in place and Black Lion rumbles soothingly in her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon is very much that Allura forgets that she's not any different from the Paladins, because she's also young, inexperienced, isn't really wise beyond her years nor has the most accurate of knowledge (hey! it's been ten thousand years, things are sure to be outdated!) And she has problems with dealing with feelings d._.b
> 
> I am immensely pleased that everyone is having the feels (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و
> 
> *Initially, I was using a different font for the Altean language but it reverted to normal text when I pasted it on the chapter ໒( •́ ∧ •̀ )७
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed the read!


	6. Grieving for Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran feels many things. He just needs time to feel them on his own.
> 
>  
> 
> _"He wishes so much to go back in time to shake that utterly insecure, self-sacrificing and ever-loving boy and tell him he is more than what he says he is."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voltron Season 3 comes out today! Excited folks?  
> In celebration, here's the Coran chapter! ;)
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Grieving for Children**

**~*~**

 

Coran takes pride in many things, but none as much as his Princess and Paladins. He is proud of Pidge for being sharp and expressing her rightful anger for the mistreatment wrought onto her and her team, proud of Hunk for keeping distance when he is clearly not ready to reconnect, proud of Keith for admitting his feelings and tempering his anger, proud of Shiro for extending the hand for another chance, and of Allura who finally reaches out and works hard, the hardest he’s ever seen, to regain the trust she lost. He does not forget that above all, the Princess and the Paladins are only children, not soldiers trained for war no matter how Allura was raised to work the Paladins and castle under her care in dire times; the loss of their beloved Blue Paladin only serves to sharply remind him how young they all are.

(And how young Lance was when his light was snuffed out, how entirely unfair it was that his life was taken before it really started.

Truly, having to bury a child gone before their time is the worst thing an adult can ever do.)

He still mourns for the boy so much like a son he once craves for, but he reins in his grief to look out for his other pseudo-children under his care, children far too young to handle their grief for a loss so great well. Coran knows that Allura still grieves for their race and for Altea, as does he, but only he knows that she has never seen a lifeless body as proof of death up front. He knows that Pidge has lost half her family and burns with the belief that unless she sees physical proof that they are dead, they are alive and need to be found. He knows even without specifics that Keith has had less than stellar childhood, but the teenager admits once that he has never seen anyone touched by death or had anyone leave him because of it. He knows that Shiro has seen and touched many, many dead bodies in his time in the arena, but not human ones, and certainly not of someone so close to his heart. He knows that Hunk has felt and heard of loss of loved ones before, but he like Allura, has never seen a real stiff, cold body in his life.

And Coran knows that out of all the Paladins, only Lance has born witness to and felt the bodies of the dead of their species, and of those close to his heart.

A nephew born to never live.

A grandfather who lay in his chair for so many hours without a twitch.

Coran knows all this when the bad days come and Lance needs to talk out all the pain before he goes back to his cheerful disposition. He knows Lance’s homesickness runs far deeper than the other Paladins know, he knows Lance’s need for noise is to make the castle less cold and empty, he knows Lance’s deepest fears and insecurities—Hunk, Coran is sure, knows these as well—and he knows the façade Lance pulls to hide them all and be the cheer and morale the team needs.

Lance once admits to him that he never wants to see any of the Paladins, Allura or Coran dead, that if given a chance, he would throw his own life away to make sure they survive.

_“Better me than any of you_.” He says then, staring up at the stars in the observation deck. _“If Allura dies, no one’s going to be able to pilot the castle and you’d be in really bad shape. If you die, nothing in the castle’s going to be fixed or maintained for it to fly and Allura would lose her mind.  If Shiro dies, Keith, Pidge and Allura will fall apart so fast, we’d be in pieces for a really long time that I don’t think we’d ever recover from it. If Pidge or Keith dies, Shiro will go mad with grief. If Hunk dies, thing’s won’t get repaired fast enough and I don’t know if I’ll survive without him.”_

_“Do you not think number two will be the same way if you die? And of the rest of us?”_

_“He’s got Pidge.”_ Lance shrugs, his smile thin and sad. _“And Shiro checks up on him a lot and you too, you know? You guys contribute so much to Voltron to make us work. Me? I’m just the loud flirty nobody who can’t understand code, mechanical stuff, and not even a good enough fighter to contribute to the team.”_

He wishes so much to go back in time to shake that utterly insecure, self-sacrificing and ever-loving boy and tell him he is more than what he says he is. Wants to tell him how his team loves him just as much as he loves them. Wants to tell him how much he is like a son Coran always wanted but never got to have. But he stows those thoughts away; because he knows he has lost the chance to ever say them to Lance.

And alas, as the adult, the most put together person on the castle ship, Coran only allows himself to grieve for a varga a day—or not at all—before he goes children hunting to soothe their aching hearts and push them to carry on with their lives. From what little Coran understands from the Earth culture Shiro has grown up in, the cutting of one’s long hair symbolizes a dividing of a person from their past to their present selves. Allura, with her hair cut short to above her shoulders that curls and frames her face, has done away with the unfeeling militant commander of Voltron and is slowly, but surely trying to rebuild her bridges anew with her Paladins, starting with the apology for cremating Lance without seeking their counsel; with Shiro, the bridge is the strongest because he builds his end just as she does her end for them to meet in the middle. Shiro does not allow her to reign supreme over him, and prods her to listen to the other Paladins when needed, but he also becomes her constant companion outside of the matters of war that fortifies their bridge further. Her bridge with Hunk is shaky at best, though Allura continues to insistently reach out toward him and spends many silent vargas each day with him in the memorial room, even going as far as to promise a trip to Earth when they can afford it to finally lay Lance to rest. But Hunk is still quiet and prone to losing himself in his thoughts, staring listlessly into space as Allura chatters softly to him by his side. She shares her fears to Coran after the third meals of the days, of whether the shell of Hunk will ever fill with life again now that his other half has gone. Keith, Allura admits to Coran, is one of the harder ones to reach out to. He still staunchly protects his fellow Paladins by making himself the physical wall between her and them, but Shiro manages to persuade him that he was fine with Allura and Keith rarely sees Hunk about, so the half-Galran continues to shield Pidge from her. He still growls at her whenever she comes near to him, but doesn’t outright send her away. Coran cautions her to take small steps with Keith, and suggests the possibility of her sparring with him in his spare time to ease him a little before setting down the foundation of their bridge.

Still, there is only so much that he can do to assist them in mending bridges; Pidge in particular, proves herself to be exceptionally adept in holding grudges, and she holds them very well and will hold them for a very long time. It was truly fascinating, for Coran to watch her shut down in every single meeting Allura heads and when she begins to pull reckless stunts that only their Red Paladin is able to pull off, and truly very vexing at the same time.

So, when the Green Paladin suddenly cuts off halfway through a mission to infiltrate a Galra facility on the planet Cleothipa, despite Shiro’s order to keep all communications online, and remains offline for several long doboshes too long even when Shiro calls for her, Coran naturally worries; as does Allura and the other Paladins.

**“Allura, can you track Pidge?”**

“I’m trying to, but something’s blocking the castle’s sensors! Green Lion is still…she’s still muting me.”

**“Shiro, I’m not reading anything on my end either!”**

**“I’m going in!”**

**“Keith! Wait!”**

From the bridge’s visual, the Red Lion zips down through the planet’s atmosphere and disappears beneath the dense green clouds. Over the communications channel, Shiro mutters words in a language Coran remembers him speaking in several times every now and then—mostly in exasperation— before ordering Hunk to hold his position and dives into the atmosphere to follow their impulsive Red Paladin. The following doboshes are so painfully tense and silent that Coran wishes Lance was still around to inject an Earth joke that would undoubtedly loosen the tension in the air and Hunk would be smiling, tittering with Lance with fondness in his eyes even though there would be obvious noises of exasperation from the others in answer to the joke.

Ten doboshes later, Shiro sends them an update, that Keith has thrown himself off Red to enter the facility and tersely tells Hunk and Allura to continue holding their positions; the tension thickens.

Another six doboshes later, Shiro calls for Hunk to descend to Cleothipa to distract the airborne forces.

Two doboshes later, a powerful roar rattles the entire castle ship, startling Coran and Allura. He meets her own gaze of surprise as his fingers fly across his console and pulls up the security footage of the shared hanger bay where Blue Lion, particle barrier deactivated, releases another roar and flies forward to ram herself against the doors of the hanger several times so hard it rattles the entire castle ship.

“Do you think…?” Coran does not finish his sentence, but his heart grows heavy as the thought passes through his mind. He hears Allura sucking in a deep breath from behind him, and as she speaks next, there is an obvious tremor in her voice.

“Open the hanger bay doors. Let Blue Lion out.”

Coran presses the keys and watches as Blue Lion roars once more as the doors slide open before throwing herself out into space and flies towards Cleothipa, disappearing through the atmosphere. He hears Allura take several breaths before speaking clearly through the communications channel.

“Shiro, Blue Lion has left the castle and is heading your way.”

**“Blue’s _what_?!”**

**“Wha-what’s Blue doing? She’s going haywire down here!”**

Coran holds his breath, whipping his head around to steal a glance at the distraught Allura as static crackles through the communications channel and then, snippets of Keith and Pidge’s voices emit from the speakers.

**“Is th- _bzzt_ \- Blue?!”**

**“We --ed to - _zzt_ \- Pidge!” **

**“But - _zzzt_ \- Matt!”**

**“GET OUT OF THERE NOW!”** Shiro roars, the sudden clear speech jars Coran. **“There’s another faction here, and I don’t know if they’re friendlies to us! We’re retreating! Allura, hold your position! Hunk! Get back up in the air and get to the castle! I’ll stay here to back up Keith and Pidge.”**

**“What about Blue?”**

**“I’ll handle her Hunk! Just go!”**

The communications channel continues to crackle with static as the sounds of laser fire and explosions echo from the speakers; Shiro infuses so much fury in his shouts to Keith and Pidge that Coran reels back from their intensity that blasts from the castle speakers while Hunk’s eyes on the castle’s visual feed widens at the same time.

Red and Green Lion reappear above Cleothipa’s atmosphere, but neither Keith or Pidge open their visual feeds or communications channel to the castle even though it is evident by Hunk’s contorting expressions that their channels are open to the Yellow Paladin. Coran is swift to override the locks on both visual and voice channels, and blinks when he meets the eyes of a person dressed in Galra prison rags, undeniably human like the Paladins, but very much older than them and scruffier looking, standing behind Pidge’s pilot seat in the Green Lion. Voltron’s smallest Paladins jumps in her seat when the visual blinks open, but Coran focuses on the greying man behind her with deep set wrinkles beneath his eyes, creasing his forehead and surrounds the edges of his mouth. The clear giddy glee that twinkles in Pidge’s eyes is enough for Coran to connect the dots.

“Ah! I see you’ve found your father number five!” He waves cheerily to them. “Although I find that it is not a sufficient excuse for you to go completely offline for over ten doboshes and still not open your channels to the castle when you got back to Green Lion. Number four, I am severely disappointed in you for doing the same.”

The identical contrite expressions of children being chastised that cross Pidge and Keith’s faces make Pidge’s father laugh. When the man’s eyes open, Coran can see the twinkle in his eyes that matches Pidge’s earlier twinkle that clears any doubt in his mind that the man is indeed her father.

**“I’m glad that there’s at least one adult around that keeps you in line! And I’m sure you’ve been quite the handful to control.”**

**“No one controls me!”**

**“Well I will now that I’m here young lady, so wipe that smile off your face. Just because you’ve saved me from the Galra doesn’t mean I’m not going to ground you until you’re sixty for pulling stunts.”**

Coran grins as Pidge’s whines echo from the channel.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar high-pitched scream emits from the communications channel makes them all jump. Then, Blue Lion breaks through the green clouds of Cleothipa and up towards the castle, prancing around Green Lion like a gleeful cub as Black Lion follows close behind. A frazzled Shiro shows up on their visual feed as more unholy screeching emits from the voice channel.

**“WHY DID THIS THING EAT ME?!”**

Coran watches as Pidge and her father’s eyes widen, so comically large, and his own fingers fly across his console to activate Blue Lion’s visual feed.

A young man, so startlingly similar to Pidge, yet visibly taller and more battle hardened, stares back at them with wide, frantic eyes from Blue Lion’s pilot seat.

**“WHY IS IT DANCING?!”**

Pidge’s brother is far louder than Coran thought he would be.

 

**~*~**

 

Blue Lion preens as she bounces back inside the castle and spits Matthew Holt out from her cockpit in the shared hanger bay as the Paladins rush out from their own Lions. Coran stands at the entrance of the bay and watches in awe as the human, dressed in odd armor, launches himself onto his feet, spinning on his heel to stare up at the purring Blue Lion radiating pure delight as she crouches down and stares at the human with her posterior raised and wiggling in the air. While he continues to stare at Blue Lion, Pidge comes flying toward him, flinging herself onto his back, screaming into his ear and clings onto him like a lifeline. Behind her, her father clasps hands with Shiro and hugs him before hobbling over to his children and enveloping them in his arms. Above them, Blue Lion purrs in obvious delight.

Coran can see soft happiness in the eyes of his Paladins for Pidge, and Shiro looks as though a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders. When Allura walks up from behind Coran towards the Paladins, he can see the apprehension in her face; it’s not as though he has forgotten the threat Pidge made all those spicolion movements ago, but he had hoped to mend their bridge before it came to that point.

They may very well lose their Green Paladin now that she has achieved her mission.

Shiro, it seems, has other ideas. He walks towards the family with purposeful strides, his eyes with a hard edge to them as the family disengages their hug. Coran exchanges a glance with Allura, and quietly, they step forward behind Shiro who folds his arms over his chest as Pidge spins to face him, her joyful expression falling when she catches sight of him.

“Explain.” Shiro lifts his hand to silence everyone else, staring down intensely at Pidge who balks.

“Explain what?!” She gasps, waving her hands to her brother and father. “I found him! I found my dad in the facility! I had to get him out!”

“You turned your comms off.” Shiro says, tone so sharp, it makes Pidge flinch. “I remember specifically telling you to _keep your comms online_ and if you needed to mute it, _tell us before you do so._ ”

“I didn’t have time to explain!” She shouts, stamping her foot. “I would’ve lost my opportunity to get him out if I wasted time to—”

“STOP GIVING ME EXCUSES!” Shiro roars as a dark purple glow outlines his eyes and Black Lion roars alongside him. Pidge’s mouth snaps shut and she jerks into a stance where her back is ramrod straight and her arms lock to her sides. Keith and Hunk startle at Shiro’s roar and follow suit, staring wide-eyed between Pidge and Shiro from their position close by. Allura tenses beside Coran, eyes wide and mouth pursing into a thin line as Shiro straightens his shoulders and looms over Pidge.

(Coran notices Blue Lion quickly stepping backward away from the angry Shiro with her head bowing downwards, all her playful and happy energy gone. Then again, the other Lions too are backing off at the irate and intense aura that is radiating off Black Lion.)

“You deliberately disobeyed my orders! We had no contact with you for over ten minutes Pidge, ten minutes! We had no idea what was going on because you didn’t deem it important enough to tell us what you were planning to do! Do you have any idea how dangerous it was for you to act like that?! What if we thought you got caught in there and then attacked the base? What if that other faction killed you because you were in there?!”

“Well… the rebels wouldn’t have killed her, maybe kidnap but—”

“We’ve already lost Lance! Did you even stop to think about how we’d feel if we lost you too?!” Shiro ignores Matt, striding forward to grasp Pidge’s shoulders and shakes her hard, staring intensely into her eyes. “Keith _threw_ himself into the facility to find you! He’d be willing to die to barge in and find you and throw you back out if it meant you were safe! Goddamnit Pidge, we care about you, but if you’re going to act like a self-entitled brat, you’re no better than how Allura was when we lost Lance! You don’t get to act like a reckless idiot and do whatever the hell you want to do just because it fits your fancy! You don’t get to scare the fuck out of us like this! You _don’t!_ ”

Coran can see Keith turn away and an expression of grief overcome Hunk’s. Allura’s face ashen, while Pidge freezes in Shiro’s grasp as she stares into his livid eyes. Pidge’s father and brother balk at Shiro’s words, both exchanging glances with each other then turn to stare at the Paladins. Pidge’s father’s eyes meet Coran’s, and Coran can only close his eyes and bow his head.

A rumble breaks the silence, and Blue Lion towers over Shiro, Pidge and her family. She bends down toward them with a huff and with her huge muzzle, nudging Pidge’s father and brother towards Shiro and Pidge and purrs, as though encouraging a family reunion rather than a scolding.

Shiro is undeterred.

“ _No_ Blue.” He says sharply, making the Lion whine. Black Lion herself, snaps her jaws at Blue Lion with a sharp loud clank. Blue Lion lies flat on her belly with her chin resting on the floor as she releases a sad sounding rumble.

“…How the heck can you make a robot lion _sad_?” Matt says in awe, stepping close to Blue Lion’s muzzle and pets her gently. “Wow, you’re really warm. Are you actually sentient?”

When Blue Lion rumbles warmly and nudges Matt, Coran feels his heart crack. Allura hesitantly steps forward, her hands clasped together at her front as she clears her throat to gather attention.

“Blue Lion.” She says with gentleness, and all eyes turn their focus to the Blue Lion nudging Matt Holt. “Does this mean you have chosen Pidge’s brother as your new Paladin?”

Surprise fills Coran’s chest when Blue Lion lifts her head to stare at Allura, rumbling and releases a snort. The other Lions stare over to their blue sister, who huffs and sits back on her hindquarters. Black Lion rumbles, stepping forward toward Blue Lion, who huffs once more and bends down, nudging the humans away from her body and activates her particle barrier. The stare Blue Lion gives to Black Lion is almost… hilariously bland. Blue Lion rumbles again, then her eyes dim to black.

Allura’s facial expression is twisting, brow twitching as she stares up at Black Lion, who in turn, stares down at her with a huff. Shiro’s brow also rises to his hairline as he stares up at Black Lion.

“I thought she—”

“Allura…?”

“Oh, pardon me!” She gasps, a blush blooming across her cheeks as she breaks contact with Black Lion. “It’s just that I… I thought Blue Lion had finally chosen her Paladin. She was awfully insistent on leaving the hanger bay when Shiro ordered Hunk down to Cleothipa and when she came back with Pidge’s brother in her cockpit…”

“If I may, Princess?” Coran interjects gently, patting her shoulder. “But what did Blue Lion answer you?”

“I—I haven’t linked with her. She’s been refusing to connect to my life force and I can’t very well force her into it.” Allura sighs, rubbing her arms. “Black Lion has been relaying to me what she deciphers from Blue Lion; for whatever reason, Blue Lion isn’t communicating with the other Lions and when she does, apparently it’s quite difficult for the other Lions to decipher.”

“Black said Matt _might_ be Blue’s chosen, but Blue’s being way too vague about it.” Shiro says softly, releasing Pidge from his grasp. His tired eyes ages his face in an instant. “She doesn’t know why Blue went to retrieve him, but Blue’s apparently not going to let him actually pilot her.”

“Whoa, wait a minute.” Matt throws his hands up with his palms facing outwards and stares at each of them. “What’s this about me being uh, chosen?”

“Ok, _no_.” Pidge snarls, stepping back to wrap her arms around her brother and glares at Allura, Shiro, then up at Blue Lion. “ _No fucking way_. Go find another pilot Blue! Matt’s off limits, because I’m going to drag his butt _home_!”

“Could we—” Pidge’s father wears a pinched expression on his face, eyes drifting between his angry daughter and the others present in the hanger. “—perhaps move to a more comfortable place to get explanations…?”

“Actually. Coran, can you take Sam to the pod room? I’d really appreciate if you could give him a check-up in case he has any injuries to be treated.” Shiro says with a small smile to Coran, eyes shifting to stare warily at Pidge. “Hunk, Keith? Could you bring Matt to the common room? Or maybe go with Allura to the bridge; I’m sure the…rebels, may try to contact us to find out where he is. Blue _did_ kind of kidnap him right in front of them.”

“Well, I’m going t—”

“You and I are going to have a talk Pidge.” Shiro snaps, grabbing the collar of her armor and roughly pulls her away from Matt. “I’ve had it with your attitude. Either we are going to have that talk in private, or I’m going to give you this tongue lashing in front of your dad and brother. Take your pick.”

 

**~*~**

 

Coran finds Samuel Holt to be an excellent conversation partner and companion. Once their introductions are done, they talk, talk and talk on their way to the pod chambers and while Coran gives Sam a check-up. Sam asks about Katie, about Voltron, Altea and the Alteans. Coran asks about Earth, humans, cultures and their technology. Both equally avoid talking about the other Paladins specifically, until the examination is over.

“It takes five lions to form Voltron…But I believe I only counted four pilots.”  

Silence falls between the two men, as Coran quietly keeps his devices and Sam remains sitting on the examination table floating beside the pods. The Royal Advisor ruffles through the wall cupboards for extra clothes for Sam to wear, feeling the other man’s eyes bearing holes into his back, not judging, but curious.

“Indeed Sam. Five Lions require five pilots, and currently, we only have four.” Coran slowly plucks out an Earth ‘shirt’ Lance had found once in a shop on the swap moon. “Our Blue Paladin, Lance, perished in battle several of your Earth months ago.”

They lapse into silence again. Coran plucks at the brown ‘pants’ inside of the cupboard.

“Was…Was your Blue Paladin an Earthling too?”

“…Yes. He was.”

“How old was he?”

“…I am not quite certain his exact age, but I believe he is only…four of your Earth years older than your daughter.”

Sam sucks in a deep breath.

“Nineteen years old…” Sam says this as though murmuring a prayer, and Coran closes his eyes with his back to Sam. “How did he…?”

“A mission.” Coran murmurs, staring straight into the cupboard. He dares not turn around to face the human man. “A mission so woefully miscalculated, doomed from the start. The Galra were prepared for us, they’d seen through our plans. We are capable of fighting one fleet with all five Lions and our castle ship, and yet we left only two lions to face _two_ fleets on their own.”

“They were _terrified_ Samuel, _terrified_.” He finally turns around to face Sam. “I’d never heard Pidge or Lance sound so young, so frightened, as they did then. One fleet surprising them is manageable, but two fleets! They were overrun in an instant, fighting even harder for their lives.”

Coran strides over, dumping the articles of clothes to one side of the examination table and leans back against it, weariness seeping through his skin and into his bones. He stares up at the ceiling as he hears Sam shift closer, waiting.

“We arrived too late. Green Lion ceased her functions, completely out of power, and Blue Lion…We arrived just in time to see an ion blast spear through Blue Lion’s body. No less than a tick later, we’re all blinded by blue light, and she’s floating in space, encased in ice.”

He rubs his hands over his face, shoulders slumping.

“I do not know if he had died when the blast hit the Lion, or if he slowly perished in the ice, but by the time we cut him out, he was gone.”

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

A hand rests on Coran’s shoulder and the Altean allows a tear to slip from his eye.

“Children Samuel. I agreed to allow children to fight a ten thousand-year-old war that wiped out my planet and people, and not once had I ever thought I’d lose any of these children in battle. Not once! Only after a few days of knowing the Paladins, Lance risked his life to save mine when the castle was attacked. A few days of knowing me, and that boy was already throwing himself into the fray and protecting me from an explosion powerful enough to half destroy our bridge and the hardiest of crystals to ever exist. Even at death’s door, I heard from the other Paladins that he shook himself up and saved Pidge from the clutches of Sendak before he fell unconscious again. He always came back no matter how battered and bruised he was, or how badly the odds were against him.”

The hand squeezes his shoulder, gentle but firm.

“He was just a _child_.” Coran whispers, feeling the damning weight pressing down on his shoulders that makes his muscles _ache_ in sync with his heart. Letting down his façade that he exudes firmly to ease the hearts of his children. “They’re all children. And now they suffer dealing with a loss we could have prevented, a loss that should never have happened.” 

The hand is gone from his shoulder and Sam remains silent, a steady and calming presence beside Coran as he gathers his straying emotions and jiggles them to keep in line.

“You’ve taken very good care of them Coran, and I can’t thank you enough for being there for Katie.”

Coran jerks up, staring at Sam, who offers him a small smile.

“Oh, make no mistake, I’m furious with that girl for somehow ending up here in space and getting herself involved in an intergalactic space war, but I’m grateful that there’s at least one adult person here looking after her. Lord knows what an obnoxious terror my little girl can be, and I don’t think there’s many people out there who are able to reel her in when she’s in one of her moods, though it looks as though Shiro’s been able to control her pretty well.”

“Not always.”

“If he’s able to control her for one hundred percent of the time, he wouldn’t be a pilot because I would’ve hired him to stay in my home just to keep her in line.” Sam remarks blandly, making Coran erupt with shaky laughter. “I can’t imagine the shenanigans that Katie must’ve been up to when she was jettisoned out here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Shiro’s hair going white came about having to deal with her.”

“But I digress.” Sam offers Coran a wry smile. “It seems that despite everything that’s happened, the rest of your children look healthy and well enough that they don’t seem like they’ll fall to pieces with a single hit.”

“I still failed one child.” The Altean looks away as shame colors his face.

They fall silent once more, the gentle hum of the castle’s engines bouncing around the still air of the pod chambers.

“Can you tell me more about him? About Lance?”

And with that his filter switches off; Coran punctuates every one of Lance’s quirks he has come to know of with waves of his hands, puffs his chest out in pride when he regales embellished tales of Lance’s daring and bravery, and softens his gaze when he recalls the times Lance’s depression got the best of him. He continues talking, about how Lance takes it upon himself to care for his team even though most of them never return the care to him, how Lance throws on the façade of the joking flirt to lighten moods and ease rising tensions even though he’s looked upon with disdain when he does this, how Lance tears himself to pieces training himself to exhaustion and stitches himself back together because he loves them all so much and wants to better protect them on and off the battlefield.

He tells Sam how Lance always covers Pidge on the battlefield with such focus and fierceness to protect their youngest as she works her technological magic, and tucks her into bed with the gentlest of smiles when she falls asleep at her work station every night. He recalls every single time Lance stands back to back with Hunk as they stand their ground against hordes of Galra troops, and the vargas Lance spends soothing the anxiety away from his best friend when the pressure becomes too much. He recounts the sharpshooting Lance does to snipe their enemies away from Shiro as he barrels through swarms of drones, and the nights the boy will always wake to press a mug of soothing tea to his ever-tired leader who never lays his head on his pillow to avoid the nightmares that haunt his sleep. He recollects, with much amusement, the daily snark and banter that would bleed through the communications channel between Lance and Keith as they tear through the endless army of drones with a bet of who would take down the most, and the soft gaze Lance will grace Keith with when he finds the Red Paladin sleeping in the oddest of places like an Earth cat.

Coran tells Sam how Lance teaches the space mice Earth games and tricks to entertain Allura, how he leaves carefully crafted paper flowers, shaped in the form of a flower long lost with their planet ten thousand years ago, by her console at the bridge and by the floor of her room to brighten her particularly gloomy day. He tells him how Lance works beside him daily, working on the chores to make sure the castle continues operating, and how the boy listens to every one of his stories with quiet rapture and awe when the others simply tune him out.

The scar in his heart burns with an ache that dims as Coran continues spouting stories of their illustrious Blue Paladin, and Sam does not interrupt him at all. When Coran finally finishes, his throat dry, eyes wet and weight lifting from his heart, the two men fall into comfortable silence.

“He sounds like a wonderful young man.” Sam finally says with wistfulness. “I wish I could have met him myself…and thank him for looking after Katie and Shiro for me.”

“I think he’d enjoy meeting you! Perhaps if only to ask of stories of Pidge as a child…”

“Then I’m sure he and Matt would’ve gotten along swimmingly. They can team up to spoil her rotten and tease her to her grave.”

“I can certainly see it!” Coran barks out a laugh, an image of Lance and Matt cuddling an irate Pidge between them forming in his mind. Then he becomes sober, remembering that Lance would never be able to meet Matt and the ‘team up’ would never happen. A hand rests on his shoulder and he looks up to see Sam staring down at him.

“It’s alright to grieve for your child Coran.”

“I have already grieved.”

“But not nearly enough.” Sam squeezes his shoulder, wizen eyes crinkling in understanding. “You’ve probably been holding back just to make sure the kids get through this. It must be hard being the only adult among a group of children, and needing to be strong for all their sakes. I’ve only known you for maybe… a few hours, but I can see how much you love that boy and how you’re still hurting.”

“…We will need to meet the Paladins, Allura and your son at the bridge soon. I must—”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to handle themselves for a few more hours to allow these two old men to have a deep meaningful conversation.” Sam squeezes his shoulder again with a gentle twinkle in his eyes as Coran’s lower lip wobbles. “After all, it’s been a while since I’ve spoken to a proper adult person who’s not actively threatening to cut my throat or ordering me to work until my bones break.”

And so, Coran weeps. Weeps for the boy lost, the boy he was proud to call his son, and for the still mending hearts of his children. Weeps for the weakened and broken bonds between his children for the loss of one of their own that scarred their hearts so deeply. Weeps for the family he has yet to meet, to tell them face to face, of the loss of their son, grandson, brother, nephew, uncle.

Beside him, Sam squeezes his shoulder firmly and sheds a tear for the boy lost so young, a boy he never has a chance to meet, but would have loved to know.

Together they grieve for the children, lost and hurting, stuck in a war that has taken their innocence, one of their lives, and torn their souls asunder.

The scar in Coran’s heart still burns and aches, but even as he continues to weep, it begins to slowly heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it moves forward ;)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the read! I'm going to be a little slower in pulling out the remaining chapters for this fic, but I swear this will be completed!


	7. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Hunk remembers Lance, breaks down, and gets the help he needs in the form of THE dad, the space uncle, his alien mouse companion, his giant yellow mechanical robot cat and the new wise guy. 
> 
>  
> 
> _"The only small spark of happiness that lights his heart is the time Pidge finds her father and brother, despite the hurricane of anxiety that scrambles Hunk’s state of mind when she suddenly goes offline during the mission, but that fizzles out the moment Shiro and Allura mention the possibility of Matt being chosen to become the Blue Paladin."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voltron S3 was one wild ride. Now it's given me a whole plethora of ideas that I have no idea if I can write, or if I have _time_ to write. Whyyy.
> 
> I am very pleased to find comments telling me how I've made everyone screech with feels. Very, very pleased. Have the Hunk chapter now ;)
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Letting Go**

**~*~**

 

The day Hunk meets Lance was the day that intrinsically ties them together for life. He remembers after squeezing Lance in front of their entire class in first period, the tiny boy stays by his side for the rest of the day, not a single complaint or negative remark out of his lips. He is the only one Lance graces with smiles while the rest of their classmates receive quiet, blank stares, and Lance is the only one whom Hunk will chatter to without a filter, and he will still listen attentively to everything Hunk says. After that, they are always side by side, every day in every class, every break time and even after school a week after their initial meeting once they cheerfully introduce their families to each other. Lance’s family take to Hunk as though he were another son to them, as did Hunk’s family to Lance. They were inseparable, rarely apart from each other, always glued together by their sides for every project, every sports activity until their teachers joke heartily that they were like conjoined twins despite the obvious difference in height and stature. Their peers are less than kind.

They bully Hunk for his big size and timid nature.

They bully Lance for his small size, feminine features and quietness.

Fatso and Girly Midget.

Pig and Bird.

Lance always seems outwardly unfazed by the insults directed at him, still eerie quiet in the face of the mockery, but he does end up biting more than half the boys in their class for calling Hunk names within the span of a month of him entering their class even though the teachers continuously warn him not to. When Lance finally snaps, biting a boy so hard his canines puncture skin, and argues with the teachers, telling them in very rough English of the horrific names Hunk is called that leaves him in tears and a desperate need to hide from the world, no one from then on dares to sneer at Hunk when Lance is around again.

(Despite his timid nature, Hunk does punch a boy in the face so hard his nose bleeds for calling Lance a rabid dog that needed to be put down because of all the biting the smaller boy does. When their families find out why Hunk, pure sweet little angel Hunk, punched the boy, both sets of parents treat him to lavish dinners two nights in a row, Lance’s older sisters treat him to ice cream for a whole week, and he and Lance have a sleepover that lasts for a month.

But the bullying does not stop.)

Hunk will have Lance’s back, just as Lance has his. Ever since the day they met, at the tender age of eight.

Lance’s _abuela_ calls them soulmates, two halves of a whole that can never be separated by anything. Attached to each other like the unlike poles of a magnet, always finding their way back to each other no matter how far apart they were. They naturally gravitate toward each other even though they don’t need to be together, always knowing when they needed each other. Lance is always there when Hunk needs a reassuring smile, shoulder squeeze, or hug to soothe the anxiety rattling Hunk’s bones, and Hunk is there to envelope him in the tightest and warmest of hugs when depression sets in deep in Lance’s mind and makes him shut down.

Hunk wholeheartedly loves Lance. They are best friends, brothers in all but blood, platonic soulmates.

When Lance died, Hunk’s heart shatters and his soul rips in two.

When Allura cremated Lance’s body without the team knowing, the pieces of Hunk’s heart and soul burns along with him.

He spends less time with the volatile Pidge to avoid the malicious and negative aura that surrounds Voltron’s youngest Paladin since the discovery of Allura’s defilement of Lance’s body, afraid of tipping over the edge if over exposed to it. Hunk will never tell anyone, but Pidge’s malicious aura has made him stay up many nights to contemplate the same dark thoughts that he knows plague the worst of Lance’s days. He allows Allura to sit by him in the days where he sits in the Memorial to stare at Lance’s hologram—even though his mind is rarely present when she is around—unable to completely turn her away when he sees her trying so hard to reconnect to him, but he hasn’t truly forgiven her for the slight she makes to Lance’s memory; the hurt still pulses beneath his skin whenever he sees her. When Allura is not sitting with him, Shiro and Coran take her place to keep him company, but Hunk never does speak to them. He also can count on one hand, how many times he’s spoken to Keith outside of missions and Platt, his mousey companion, never once leaves his shoulder and often chitters to him to remind him of meal times.

Hunk doesn’t feel the vibe of family with the rest of team Voltron anymore. He doesn’t even feel _life_.

The only small spark of happiness that lights his heart is the time Pidge finds her father and brother, despite the hurricane of anxiety that scrambles Hunk’s state of mind when she suddenly goes offline during the mission, but that fizzles out the moment Shiro and Allura mention the possibility of Matt being chosen to become the Blue Paladin. So, when Shiro issues his orders to bring Matt to the bridge, Hunk is quick to slip away and hides in Lance’s old room to allow his tears to roll down his cheeks in private. He hides there, clad in only his flight suit and clutching Lance’s shirt tight against his body—Lance’s green jacket is still mysteriously missing in action since Lance’s death, much to Hunk’s dismay— curled up on the unmade sheets with only Platt for company.

A new Blue Paladin means replacing Lance.

It means to wholly accept his fate.

It means to move on.

**_“I love you guys.”_ **

Hunk does not know if he will ever be ready to move on. He just wants Lance back.

( _“Let’s promise then! We’ll be friends forever and ever and ever and ever!”_ )

 

**~*~**

He avoids contact with his team and the possible Paladin candidate by ensconcing himself in Lance’s blankets as a solid lump nestling right in the middle of the bed. Allura pages him through the castle’s intercoms, Pidge and Shiro call for him through the corridors, but he does not answer them. Not even Coran, the only one of the team who knows that one of Hunk’s most used hiding spots is Lance’s room, is able to convince Hunk out of his blanket burrito to even eat the meals he brings to him.  Even Yellow, who only rumbles to him every hour, is unable to force him to move. Platt squeaks and nuzzles his cheek in clear dismay for his lack of motions, but Hunk merely continues to lie on his side in his flight suit, staring blankly at the wall with Lance’s shirt held tightly in his fists.

Platt’s whiskers twitch and the mouse pauses in his nuzzles to Hunk’s cheek when the door swishes open again and shuts with a gentle click.  Shoulders tense as soft footsteps tread to the bed and the mattress sinks as the person sits next to Hunk’s head. An unfamiliar calloused hand touches his forehead and cards through his hair in gentle soothing motions, and slowly, the tension that riddles Hunk’s muscles eases. The top of Hunk’s head presses against the bony hip of the person sitting on the bed with him as the other shifts closer, but continues to run their hand through his hair. Hunk’s eyes drift close, clenching the blue and white shirt tighter in his fists. They remain this way for a while, the hand continuing to stroke Hunk’s hair soothingly, until Hunk sucks in a deep breath before turning his head slightly to meet the gaze of gentle, wizen eyes.

“Hello.” Pidge’s father smiles down at him, the skin around his cheeks and eyes crinkling while his hand continues to stroke Hunk’s hair. “Were you able to get some rest?”

Hunk looks away, head turning back on its side as his lips purse into a thin line and closes his eyes. Samuel Holt hums softly, still stroking Hunk’s hair.

“They’re all worried about you. You’ve been hiding for over two days now and Coran said that you weren’t eating.”

Hunk curls further, pulling his knees to his chest.

“This isn’t healthy.” Sam whispers, fingers stopping their movement on his head. “Won’t you eat a little bit at least?”

Just as Hunk tilts his chin down to his chest, his stomach releases a grumbling roar that causes Platt to squeak in fright and scamper up Hunk’s face. Shame colors his cheeks as Hunk presses his cheek deeper against the mattress of the bed. Sam’s hands leave his head as the sheets rustle with movement, and Platt’s little paws that were digging into his scalp vanishes. Clinks and clacks tinkle to the side and Hunk feels the mattress shift again, a calloused hand slipping beneath his cheek pressing against the mattress and lifts his head up to turn his face upwards. Eyes the same color as Pidge’s, full of worry, peers down at him, and Hunk’s heart clenches.

His heart desperately wishes his mothers, either one of them, to be the ones gazing into his eyes with worry instead of Pidge’s father. Them or Lance.

The gaze of worry softens.

“Come on now.” Sam urges, patting Hunk’s cheeks gently and cups the back of his head to lift him up. “Sit up and eat. I think your stomach might have been loud enough to even wake your lions!”  

After some more urging, Hunk moves. With the grace and speed of a snail, Hunk finally pushes himself up into a sitting position and promptly falls backwards to lean his back onto the wall, the blue and white shirt lies across his lap. Sam merely smiles patiently, bowl of food goo on his lap with a small yellow fuzzy butt wiggling in the air as the fattest of the space mice hangs himself over the top of the bowl, tail flicking about in obvious happiness. Ah, so that’s where Platt went. Sam calmly pinches the mouse’s butt and lifts him up from the bowl, giving the messy faced Platt a stern stare, which the mouse readily returns with a happy smile and squeak. It’s enough to make the corners of Hunk’s lips twitch upwards, but the half smile falls as soon as it comes. The older man sets the bowl in Hunk’s hands laying on his lap and turns to whisper to Platt before sending the mouse on his way. His hand grasps the spoon and stirs the remainder of the food goo in the bowl, but doesn’t move to lift the spoon to his lips.

“As unappetizing as this ‘food goo’ looks, I hear that it does have the necessary nutrients for our constant survival and I’d really prefer you eat the entire bowl—or well, whatever is left after your sneaky mouse dug his nose into it.”

The steady gaze of the parental figure compels Hunk to obey the request and slowly, quietly, he spoons the goo into his mouth until the bowl is empty. Sam merely smiles at him, patting his shoulder as he takes the bowl from his slack hands.

“Now, I believe there’s a shower with your name on it. I’m sure you’ll feel at least a little more human-ish after taking one.”

Sam still sits at the edge of the bed with that patient smile and doesn’t move to leave until Hunk finally heaves himself off the bed with sluggish movements, taking Lance’s shirt with him. He lumbers out of Lance’s room, vaguely aware of Sam plodding along behind him with a gentle hand pressing against his back in a soothing gesture. Another hand presses on his back, about the same size as Sam’s, guiding him to turn through a door. When the second hand leaves his back, a blurry blob of orange and blue enters his vision.

“Come now number two.” The blob whispers, a hand pats Hunk’s shoulders as the remaining hand on Hunk’s back lifts away. “Strip away and off you get to your bathroom. Freshen up! We’ll be back to check on you in half a varga.”

Once they leave, Hunk sluggishly makes his way to the bathroom and sits in the shower with his flight suit on and his fist clenching tightly on Lance’s shirt. His back presses against the wall as the hot rain of water pelts down on him and his bones ache in exhaustion. Staring up at the droplets of water pattering over his face, Hunk closes his eyes and thinks of rain showers.

_Lance likes to take long showers_. His mind supplies. _With his clothes on. Said it was the closest thing to feeling rain like on Earth. Nice to stay under when he felt like shit and wanted to wash all the shit feelings away._

A sob catches in his throat and his eyes well with tears. He stays there under the rain of the shower, shivering and sobbing, until two pairs of hands press against his body and gentle murmurs catch in the cotton stuffed in his ears. The hands peel the heavy and clinging material of the flight suit from his skin, pries Lance’s shirt from his fist, and rubs his bare back soothingly as the flowery scent of soap wafts in the air, dampened by the water. Gentle hands scrub his hair, massages neck and shoulders with slippery soap, and rinses off the soapsuds from his being. One pair of hands ruffle through his wet locks with a fluffy towel, the other wrapping him up like a burrito in a bigger fluffier towel, and they urge him up to his feet and guide him out of the bathroom.

“Come on son, lift up—atta boy.”

Shirt, boxers, pants; the hands gentle ease his limbs through the garments and pat his head. Hunk blinks as wetness slides down his cheeks, a pair of gloved hands cup his face tenderly, and his eyes resumes focus to see the blurry pinched, worried expressions of Sam and Coran crouching in front of him.

“Hunk my boy?” Coran says softly, squeezing his cheeks gently. “Are you with us?”

A sound like the croaking of a frog escapes his throat, but Hunk nods, the fog in his mind dissipating as his eyes focuses. Relief spreads across the older men’s faces, and their shoulders sag, as though the tension that riddles through them ebbs away.

“Welcome back my boy.” Coran smiles, giving Hunk’s cheeks another squeeze before releasing them. “I’m glad to hear that you’ve eaten a substantial portion of your bowl! Now if only Platt hadn’t gotten to it first…”

Coran continues to ramble as he plods around Hunk’s room, picking up the scattered mess of blankets, sheets and clothes as Sam sits next to Hunk on the bed, chatting amicably with the Altean. Their easy chatter washes over Hunk like a soothing balm, but the ache in his heart presses harder against his chest, yearning for Lance to be the one in his room filling the air with his brand of chatter. Suddenly, his breath hitches as his eyes widen and dart around the room.

How did Lance sound like?

“You’ve got to breathe Hunk! Come on son, take a breath now—”

Sam’s sharp, but gentle murmur snaps Hunk back to the present, blinking tears from his eyes as they track down his cheeks, feels his breath hitch and stutter, and feels the firm squeeze of arms around his shoulders. The expressions of worry—again, they’re just so worried, why is Pidge’s father even worried for anyway? He barely knows them—on their faces tugs at Hunk’s heart strings.

_“Come on bro, breathe with me. I’m right here ok? There we go buddy, that’s it! Deep breath in…aaaand out. In—”_

Ah. There it is. Encompassing, warm, and steady. Eighty percent of the time Lance opens his mouth, he uses the nasally, whiny, overconfident tones and talks all the shit in the world that belie his insecurities. The other twenty percent has gentle, warm, empathic tones that he reserves for those he cherishes close to his heart in private, for the wounded, or for little children in need of a brotherly figure. Hunk takes slow, deep breaths as his mind serves him the memory of Lance by his side, murmuring and soothing the anxiety that crawls beneath his skin, but then his breath hitches again when he remembers, it’s just a memory; Lance isn’t actually by his side and the arms around his shoulders, squeezing him into a hug, is not the same thin wiry arms of his best friend.

“I w-w-w-w-want him back!” He wails, burying his face into his hands. “I want him back! I want him back! I want him back!”

The arms tighten around him as he screams for Lance and another pair envelopes him, pressing his face into a warm chest and muffles his screams. They remain this way until Hunk’s sobs ebb down and his hands fall limply to his side. Pounding footsteps echo from outside of his room and the door swishes open with a rush of air. Deep breaths being sucked in and the gentle murmur of ‘Oh Hunk…’ makes him bury his face deeper against the warm chest and heave out another stuttering sob.

“Oh, my boy…” Coran murmurs from above Hunk, chin resting on the top of his head. “What brought this about?”

“She can’t replace him!” He sobs. “Sh-sh-she _can’t_!”

“She?”

“ _Blue_!” Hunk wails, choking on his sobs. “She can’t replace him! She can’t replace Lance!”

Gasps bounce against the walls of his room even as he presses his nose against the chest harder, chanting ‘she can’t, she can’t, she can’t’. A different pair of arms, thin, but strong, wrap around his shoulders from his free side, squeezing his arm firmly against a soft chest as a face buries themselves into his neck and the tips of her short fluffy hair tickles his skin. Allura presses him close, murmuring soothing words to his ears and peppers the side of his head with butterfly kisses before resting her cheek onto his shoulder. The first pair of arms—not Lance—breaks away from him, mattress shifting, as a hand of cold steel presses against his heaving back, firm and encompassing, and slides up to the back of his neck to gently massage the tense muscles. As Allura presses a hand against his heart while the fingers of her other hand strokes his bicep tenderly, he relaxes, sniffling as he tries to control his tears, and shakily lifts his hand to cover her hand over his heart, squeezing it for comfort. Coran loosens his arms around Hunk and places his hands on his shoulders, staring deeply into his still tearing eyes.

“No one can replace Lance in our lives my boy.” He says gently, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek. “Should Blue Lion choose another Paladin, it is simply to add to our family, not to erase Lance from us.”

“But I want him back.” He weeps, staring back up at Coran’s ashen face. “I want Lance back.”

The cold steel of Shiro’s prosthetic hand lifts to the back of Hunk’s head, fingers pressing against the side of his head to pull him to rest his head to Shiro’s forehead.

“I’m so sorry Hunk.”

Hunk relinquishes his control and allows his tears to freefall until he falls unconscious, ensconced in the embrace of Allura, Coran and Shiro.

( _“Just let it all out. Crying doesn’t make you weak, it’ll just make you stronger later on.”_ )

 

**~*~**

 

When Hunk wakes, he’s lying on his side, not in his room, wrapped in a ridiculous number of multicolored blankets with all four of the space mice cuddling around somewhere in his hair and his head pillowed by the thigh of a person. A hand is gently petting his head, bypassing the sleeping mice in his hair. He wiggles about in the burrito blankets, rolling himself onto his back and dislodges the mice from his hair, and freezes when he meets the eyes of the person he doesn’t want to face.

Matt Holt blinks down at him, as gentle as his father but far less assured, and gives him a small wave.

“Hi.” He whispers, eyes kind and mouth curving into a hesitant smile. “How’re you feeling?”

“…Hi.” Hunk croaks, diverting his eyes away. The four space mice chitter from the side of his head, all of them standing on top of Matt’s thigh after tumbling down Hunk’s head. Platt scrambles forward, pressing his wet little nose against Hunk’s cheek as Chulatt hops onto his head and presses her nose to the side of Hunk’s. He wiggles a little, the whiskers of the mice tickling his skin, but freezes when a displeased noise erupts from the direction of his legs. Craning his neck upwards to peer down toward his legs—making poor Chulatt tumble down his chin and into the hole from the top of his burrito blanket—, he finds Pidge curled by his calf, and Shiro and Keith by his feet.

“They didn’t want to leave you alone.” Matt whispers. “The Princess would’ve stayed, but the rebels called, so she, Coran and my dad went to take the call. I don’t think they’ve finished yet. She just uh, forced me to sit down and dropped your head on my lap.”

Matt guides Hunk’s head back onto his thigh as an indignant Chulatt fights her way out from the blanket burrito, the other three mice squeaking their laughter at their fellow mouse’s plight. They remain in silence—only staring in vague amusement when Chulatt finally scrambles out of the folds of the blanket burrito and chases her three unhelpful friends out of the common room—until Matt rests a hand on Hunk’s forehead.

“You know… I don’t know anything about your gigantic space robot cats, but that Blue Lion? Just literally tore into the Galra facility, lunged at me and ate me. In front of my comrades. Rattled me around the cockpit when I tried to touch the sticks at its pilot seat and when I tried to touch any one of the consoles. Then starts dancing around like its high on catnip up in space. I’m amazed that the mechanical robot cat is sentient no lie, my inner geek is so happy I could piss myself, but I’m also terrified of it because wow, it _ate me_. Thought I was going to end up in its huge mechanical stomach and get digested by some acid or something. Do they, I dunno, take dumps or something? Like, do they eat? If they do, won’t they end up needing to…expel everything and the shit they chug out end up being time sensitive bombs that could stink up the Galra ships—”

A rough chuckle erupts from Hunk’s throat as Matt quietly rambles to him about his ‘kidnapping by a sentient giant mechanical blue lion’, and his eyes dim, lips curving downwards. Lance would have _loved_ to meet Matt. They had the same way of recounting their stories that built on humor to lessen the real intensity and fear of it, and _rambling_ off tangent that kind-of-sort-of links to the story. Hunk’s heart aches again, wishing for Lance to be there.

“Matt, why the hell are you talking about our lions shitting bombs?”

“Seriously Matt?”

“What the fuck?”

“It’s a legit question! If the lions are sentient, they should have and feel the same bodily functions as any other live being does! Like… their ventilation systems! When it’s on, isn’t that something like passing gas because the contaminated air has to be cycled out? I mean, like, in one way out the oth-”

“OH MY GOD THAT’S GROSS MATT!”

“Why do you do this to me Matt…”

“What the _fuck_?” Keith repeats emphatically, and Hunk cranes his neck see the Red Paladin stare straight at Matt in complete bewilderment. Shiro has his face hidden in his hands and Pidge is glaring at her brother in utter disgust, shrieking at him to ‘stop being gross’. The incredulity that oozes from his fellow Paladins, and Pidge’s heated exchange with Matt, does Hunk in; he throws his head back as he bursts into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that shakes his entire body.

The blanket burrito unwinds from his body as he continues to shake with laughter, freeing his arms for him to slap his hand over his mouth. His body still quivers even as his laughter dims down to muffled giggles, and the door to the common room swishes open.

“Oh my, what’s gotten him in stitches?”

“Dad! Matt’s being a gross butt again!”

“It was a totally legit question!”

The Holt siblings continue their quibbling while their father releases a long-suffering sigh and Coran huffs a chuckle. Hunk’s giggles ebb away as the noise washes over him, and he closes his eyes, relishing the emotion filled atmosphere. It almost feels like home, where the siblings always bickered over one thing or another, exasperate their parents and amuse their guests. Just like Lance’s family; full of laughter, full of well-meaning noise, full of love—

He chokes as the memories surface and tears well in his eyes.

Soft hands cup his cheeks and when he opens his eyes, he sees the blurry silhouette of Allura peering down at him with worry. She strokes his cheeks with her thumb, her long fingers wiping the tears from the side of his face as they roll down from his eyes. He blinks the blur away, staring at the bright blue of Allura’s eyes as her brows curve into a soft, questioning gaze.

“M’sorry…” He whimpers, closing his eyes again. “I just…Lance…”

“…What about Lance?” She asks softly, still stroking his cheeks with her thumbs as Matt peers down from behind her at him with eyes full of worry.

“I miss him so much…”

Arms wrap around his neck and a nose presses against his cheek as a hand rests on the top of his head. He opens his eyes, meeting Matt’s sad gaze and turns to the side where Allura is hugging him. When he looks back up, Shiro is alongside of Matt, gazing at him with his own haggard eyes. The common room remains in sad silence, until the clearing of a throat catches their attention. Everyone swivels their heads to look at Coran by the door as it clicks close.

“I believe it is time for yet another intervention Paladins.”

Hunk feels his heart sink into his stomach as sees Matt mouth up ‘intervention?’ to Shiro above him, to which Shiro only shrugs back. Allura presses a gentle kiss to the side of Hunk’s head, running her hand through his messy hair before standing and scooting to sit beside Matt’s free side. Hunk sluggishly sits up with the help of Shiro and Matt’s guiding hands, and leans back heavily against the backrest of the circular couch beside Matt. He notices Keith and Pidge settling directly opposite from Allura, just as Shiro pats his head and ruffles his hair before he moves to sit beside Allura. When Sam and Coran move to stand in the gap in the couches, Hunk realizes that their team is still, glaringly, split in two; Keith and Pidge still very visibly wary of Allura, sitting far away, while Shiro remains a steady presence by the Princess’s side. Apparently, Allura was a big enough issue for Pidge not to sit close by to her brother.

Hunk doesn’t know where he really stands with the team. On one hand, he hasn’t forgiven Allura for what she’d done just as Pidge and Keith feel, but on the other, his heart doesn’t want to lose another friend and wants to give her another chance like Shiro has given to her. And on the third hand, he just wants to stay away from all that drama because the only thing that would piece his heart back together again was to have Lance back. His shoulders slump forward and he huffs, blowing away the strands of his fringe tickling his nose as his hands lie limp on his lap.

“Keith, Pidge, you’re both being utterly ridiculous.” Coran raises a hand to halt the imminent shouts to argue their point. “I’ve heard more than enough from the both of you about your feelings. I agree that Allura was wrong in doing what she did and you are correct to say it’s done and nothing can change that, but she is _trying_ her best to make amends. Civility at the very least, should be granted for that. _Especially_ for missions. I know Shiro has given you quite the tongue lashing Pidge, for your inexcusable actions during the last mission, but it seems that your little primitive synapses aren’t firing enough in your brain cage to actually absorb it.”

“Keith, I know you are part Galra and sharp with your instincts, but are _trying_ to get yourself killed?” Coran continues as red streaks across Pidge’s cheeks. Keith jumps at the accusation and flinches when Coran pins him with a stare. “I know you are reckless, but jumping in after Pidge like that, _without keeping your communications channel on_ , is beyond reckless. Do you know that I am able to track of all Paladins’ vitals from the castle? Did you know just how high Shiro and Hunk’s heartrates spiked because the two of you dropped off the grid? And while your heartrates were higher than your normal, neither of you had the same increase in blood pressure and there were chemical imbalances in their brains that would have triggered something I believe you humans call ‘anxiety attack’.”

“I don’t want your excuses.” Coran’s brows knit down into a stern frown. “But I’d like to remind you that you have people who _care_ about you here. If you don’t believe Allura doesn’t care for you, then I’ll leave you to that, but don’t you _dare_ forget Shiro or Hunk because ultimately, they will be the ones who suffer the most if you go out there and kill yourselves.”

“So, I want you all to _talk_.” His mustache flares when Pidge opens her mouth. “I will _not_ take no for answer Katie Holt. The four of you will sit down and get your quiznaking act together otherwise I will drop you all on the Karthulian system without your lions!”

“The four of us?” Shiro raises a brow.

“I’d like to speak with Hunk privately first.” Coran nods towards him, and Hunk blinks back. “Sam will be an excellent mediator between the rest of you while we talk.”

“Will it be ok if I joined you?” Matt’s eyes slide from his sister, to his father, to Coran and finally to Hunk as his face twists in confusion. “I mean…it’s ok if you’re not comfortable with me coming along, I just—”

“…S’okay.” Hunk mumbles, breaking eye contact with Matt to look down at his hands. “I don’t mind.”

“Excellent!” Coran claps his hands, striding over to Hunk and urges him to his feet. “Come now, we have much to discuss my boy. As do they.”

The doors close with a click and Coran swiftly guides Hunk down the corridors, Matt hovering beside them. When they reach the dining room, Coran sits Hunk down at the table and breezes to the food goo dispensary, shooing the space mice from the counter, and fixes bowls of goo as Matt settles down beside Hunk. Coran slides the bowls of goo to Hunk and Matt before settling opposite of Hunk.

“Eat Hunk, you’ve lost far too much weight in the last few phoebs. I want that bowl cleaned my boy, then we’ll start talking.”

The voice of the parent, eerily similar to the coaxing Sam used on him earlier, makes Hunk comply to the command. When the first spoon empties in his mouth, his stomach releases a happy gurgle and then hunger strikes him hard. He wolfs down the bland goo with astonishing speed and when the bowl is cleaned of all contents, Matt pushes the second bowl of goo toward him.

“You need it more than I do big guy.”

The second bowl becomes sparkling clean in a manner of seconds. Patting his surprisingly sated stomach, Hunk releases a tiny burp that causes the mice on the table to squeak in laughter. Heat rises to his cheeks, but the pleased expression on Coran’s face and the cheerful smile on Matt’s quells the embarrassment clawing up his chest.

“Well, I’m certainly glad part of your appetite has come back my boy.” Coran snorts as Platt wiggles his way to the top of the bowl and squeak in dismay when he doesn’t find a single morsel left. “But we need to have this talk Hunk. You haven’t been looking after yourself at all since Lance’s passing.”

“I know how much it hurts losing him.” He reaches forward, grasping one of Hunk’s hands with both of his own. “But you’ve been hiding in either the memorial or Lance’s room, not eating or sleeping properly that even _Platt_ must remind you of your bodily functions. I don’t think you’ve even spoken to any of your fellow Paladins any time outside of missions.”

“ _Please_. Talk to me.”

Coran’s hands squeeze his gently and Hunk stares down at their grasping hands. He bites his lip as he contemplates unloading all his feelings to Coran. And Matt, who was making himself as inconspicuous as possible. He idly wonders if it was truly therapeutic to spit out one’s feelings to another person. Then he remembers Lance’s own upheaval of feelings to him that come almost once a month to keep himself grounded, ones that Hunk insists that he do, to keep from losing himself in the whirlwind of negative thoughts and self-loathing. He remembers how much Lance fights not to share them, but the times that he does share leaves his eyes brighter, not one hundred percent but far better than the twenty percent red battery that would have continued to drop and sap him the will to live completely. To keep on living life. Live another day, fight the Galra; one more day closer to going home.

Perhaps, it was time he took the advice he’d once given Lance.

He pours everything out, tipping the overfilled bottle of feelings completely upside down. From the heartache of losing the half of his soul that was his platonic soulmate, to the creeping dark thoughts of ending things. Every drop of feeling does not go unspoken. Neither Coran nor Matt interrupt him as he spews out everything, heart hammering against his chest as tears of all his feelings drip from his eyes. Frustration, fear, love, heartache, anxiousness, emptiness. The lack of will, lack of urgency, lack of _life_. Nightmares of a cold unmoving body, half lidded blue eyes that stare with so much accusation, freezing cold, and ice, ice, ice and more ice.

The unbridled anxiety that surges through his body at every vicious remark Pidge makes.

The hollow ache in his chest when Shiro, Allura and Coran sit by him.

The sheer _nothingness_ when in close contact with Keith.

He gasps and heaves, body sagging as his muscles loosen and a hand rubs his back in soothing circles while thumbs press against the smooth surface of his wrists. Tiny paws and tickling whiskers patter over his exposed arms as he sucks in desperate breaths.

Then, he talks about Lance. Their first meeting, each other’s families adopting the boys into their families within a week of their meeting. About the vicious little Lance who bites bullies for calling Hunk names and the time Hunk punches a boy for crossing the line bad mouthing his best friend. He regales, with so much fondness, the less than exciting tales of a small and quiet Lance, who never speaks a lot because of his poor command of English, and the timid Hunk in their years of schooling and extra circular activities. He talks about the bullying, so continuous and so intense that it cripples Lance’s self-esteem so badly that he cuts his hair down short and flips his public attitude one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to hide the hurt, but their peers gain more ways to ridicule him. Yet despite all the hurt thrown his way, the negativity, the building _self-depreciation_ , he still manages to be the rock Hunk needs to curb his anxiety when it hits him. Putting Hunk before himself, putting _everyone_ before himself, and begins to make himself the butt of the joke if it made people smile.

He recalls how unhappy Lance’s family was with the sudden change, insisting that Lance didn’t need to hide himself in the eyes of the public, but Lance was never deterred. Lance changes to hide his insecurities, his self-loathing and hurt, to make people dismiss him and not take him seriously enough to see beneath the mask he crafted. It works so well that even Hunk himself is fooled several times. He wishes, so hard, that he had done more to convince his best friend that his long hair and quiet self was not bad as their peers made it out to be, that he was perfect the way he was.

The quiet little boy who works doubly hard to prove himself worthy, yet for all his efforts, everyone else still finds him lacking. The boy, who when he loves, loves fiercely and wholeheartedly. The boy who put others above himself, the protector, the shield.

Hunk breathes heavily and finally, slumps forward to bury his face into his arms resting on the table. The hand on his back continues to rub soothing circles, while the hands on his wrists shift to clasp his hands. Little wet noses kiss his cheeks, his nose and eyelids.

“…I think he has depression.” Matt murmurs by Hunk’s side, the hand on his back clenching in to a fist. “How…how long ago was…?”

“…If my calculations on conversion is correct… Lance died at least four Earth months ago.”

“ _Fuck_.” Matt mutters, impressing all his feelings into that one word. “Was there any…counselling? Wait, no. Shit. Of _course_ not. There’s only six of you in this place, no wonder everyone’s a fucking mess. Katie’s probably being a stubborn little shit and Shiro’s more likely to ignore _his_ issues and concentrate on working on other people’s shit instead but he probably wouldn’t make any head way because he’s no psychiatrist. Mister Grumpy-pants looks like the kind of guy who’s emotionally constipated and even _more_ likely to ignore his shit by saying it doesn’t exist.”

A wobbly laugh escapes Hunk’s throat.

“That…that sounds like something Lance would say. But without the curse words.”

“is he one of those guys who’ll censor his cursing and make it PG?”

“He says ‘what the cheese’, ‘hold the phone’, and ‘apples and bananas’.”

“…He is _so_ kid friendly… I bet he’d hate me because I have absolutely no kid-friendly filter and I curse in front of every kid I meet. Look at how Katie turned out!”

Another laugh bubbles from his throat despite the rawness. Hunk quietly pushes himself up, shoulders still slumping, and looks up to Coran. The wizen Altean merely smiles, squeezing his hands gently with a twinkle of pride in his eyes.

“I’m proud of you for talking about your feelings my boy.” His gloved hands squeeze Hunk’s hands tighter. “I miss Lance very much as well. Sometimes I believe him to be still here, the echoes of him helping me clean the pods and asking me for stories of my youth, my planet and my King. But for you, I cannot imagine how much it hurt for you to have the other half of your soul be ripped out from you. I may be one of the few Alteans left in the universe, but I feel that I am lucky to have not seen the dead bodies of my King, my loved ones up close in front of me as you have experienced.”

“I’m sorry, that I have failed you. I’m afraid I do not have much knowledge about this ‘depression’ you humans may suffer from in light of the death of a loved one,” Coran murmurs, tired, wizen eyes meeting Hunk’s own. “But I’m always willing to listen to you Hunk; just say the word and I’ll drop everything to sit by your side when you need me to. Lance loves you so, _so much_ , and I know he would be upset to see you in this state. No one can take his place in your heart, but please, at least allow me the chance to be a pillar of strength for you, just as he was. I don’t think this old heart of mine will be able to withstand losing another dear child.”

“Not just him you know.” Matt’s hand shifts, wrapping his arm around Hunk’s shoulders to give him an awkward sideways hug. “I mean, you have Shiro, Katie, Mister Grumpy-pants and the Princess too and I know I’ve only just met you, but…I’m here too, I mean, if you’ll let me. I know you’re probably really pissed with me on the Blue Lion and that chosen Paladin thing, and maybe I’m just being a nosy asshole poking around in stuff that I don’t understand or have no business in, but, but I _want_ to. I want to help you even though we’re strangers, because well…yea. I just _want_ to. I’m sure my dad’s going to start watching you just to make sure you’re ok because you know… _dads_.”

Hunk just stares at Matt as he rambles on, uncertainty creeping up his face. Matt notices the stare and his eyes widen.

“I swear I don’t have an ulterior motive! I don’t! I’m fucking terrified of that shitty Blue Lion that just lunged at me and _ate_ me! I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes when I saw her jaws open going straight for me!”

Matt flaps his arms about, valiant pleading his lack of ulterior motives for offering support to Hunk. His heart still aches, still desperately wishing for Lance, but a gentle rumble from Yellow soothes the sharpness of the pain. She purrs, nudging the edge of his conscious and tugs a memory for his viewing, as though telling him he has been mourning too long and reminds him of a promise he made to his platonic soulmate.

 

_“Hey, bro?” Lance whispers, snug against Hunk’s side under the warmth of the fuzzy blanket covering them as they stare at the stars from their seats on the observation deck._

_“Yea?”_

_“We’re gonna take a while before we can go home you know.”_

_“…Yea. I…I uh…kind of figured.” Hunk swallows, squeezing Lance closer. “I mean…it’s a ten-thousand-year-old war…And…I’m just really hoping that everything smooths out once Zarkon’s out for the count.”_

_Lance hums noncommittally, snuggling closer. They sit in silence until Lance speaks up again._

_“I need you to promise me something Hunk.”_

_“Hmm?”_

_“If…if anything happens to me, you gotta keep living.”_

_His muscles tense as Hunk flinches, head swiveling to the side to stare at Lance with wide eyes._

_“Wha-Lance! What do you mea—”_

_“It’s like you said.” Lance murmurs, tilting his head up to meet Hunk’s gaze with a bland stare. “It’s a ten-thousand-year-old war. Anything can happen.”_

_“You’re not dying!” Hunk hisses furiously, shifting to lift Lance off his bottom and sits him on his lap, wrapping both arms around his chest and squeezes him tightly. “You’re not going to die! Not you, not me, not Shiro, not Pidge, not Keith, not Allura and not Coran! None of us are going to die! We’re going to kick Zarkon’s butt to kingdom come and we’ll all go home together!”_

_“Promise me anyway.”_

_“NO!” He clutches Lance tighter, squeezing his eyes shut and buries his nose into messy brown locks. “We’re not going to die! You’re not going to die!”_

_“Hunk.” Lance wiggles against his grip and shifts his body so that his face is pressing against Hunk’s chest, and wraps his arms around Hunk’s middle. “Promise me.”_

_“You’re not going to die.”_

_“Ok. I’m not going to die.” Lance parrots, rubbing his nose against Hunk’s neck. “But promise me anyway. Please?”_

_“Lance, I—”_

_Lance shifts again, pressing his palms against Hunk’s chest to push away from his tight grip. Hunk blindly grapples for him, but smooth hands cup his cheeks to tilt his head up and he opens his eyes to meet calm blue._

_“Promise me.”_

_The calm gaze throws Hunk back to their childhood days, where Lance’s command of English is not so good and when he wants to emphasize his point, he gives the steadiest of gazes and speaks slowly, but firmly. Not a demand, yet not quite a plea. Hunk swallows, gazing at the soft, yet serious eyes that compel him to make this promise._

_“…I promise.”_

_“As in normally.” Lance leans forward to touch their foreheads together. “Like, continue your daily life. No moping, no hiding. Help Coran with all the ship stuff, feed the gremlin three meals a day and make sure she’s tucked in bed every night. Kick Keith’s quiznaking butt in training with your bayard and cook all the food to stuff Allura and Shiro silly.”_

_“Lance…”_

_“Please?”_

_“Then promise me you’ll do the same.” Hunk tilts his chin downwards as he wraps his arms around Lance’s waist, pulling him into a hug and buries his nose into Lance’s neck. “If you…if you want me to make this promise to you, then make it to me too. No hiding, no moping, no cutting.”_

_“…I promise.” Lance agrees without hesitation, wrapping his arms around Hunk’s neck with a sigh._

_“Then…I promise too…but it’s not going to ever come to it. Never.”_

_“If you say so buddy. If you say so.”_

 

Yellow purrs, pulling him from the memory and nuzzles him through their bond. Lance was still, as always, pragmatic, and he takes all their promises seriously. Hunk sniffles, wiping the tears that well in his eyes, and gives the now silent Matt and Coran a watery smile.

“Thank you.” He croaks, pressing the back of his hands to catch the tears that continue to well in his eyes. “I _-thank you._ ”

Matt’s sideways hug is firmer than his first, and Coran squeezes his hands with so much pride in his eyes. Yellow purrs again, enveloping him with warmth and love.

“No matter what Hunk, we’ll be here. Things may not be okay now…but I promise you, it will eventually.”  

( _“Everything will be ok bro. Believe me. It’s not okay now, but it will be. I promise.”_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3-4 chapters to go! (Depending how the next two chapters go) The main ride is almost over folks. 
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed the read and keep on feeling the feels ;)


	8. Eventually, Everything will be OK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wants to help. But only one is letting him do so and at the same time, he has his own problems.
> 
> _Keith radiates rebelliousness, arms folded across his chest and flinty cold eyes bearing right into Sam as though sizing him up and finds him lacking, while Allura in contrast exudes gentle openness with her dainty hands lying on her lap and bright blue eyes wide with sad warmth. Shiro is lukewarm and noticeably distant, and Katie…_
> 
> _Is completely and utterly unreceptive to talking things out, and de-evolves into a pouting toddler ignoring everyone for not getting their way. Is this really his daughter?_  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this took me a long while to do. I have less time for writing now that work has consumed me. (´;︵;`)  
> So updating the remaining chapters will take much longer (◞‸◟；)  
> Well, I decided Dad Holt needed to have a chapter, so here it is!  
> May the feels be with you all ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Eventually, Everything will be OK**

**~*~**

 

Sam Holt is bone-achingly _tired_.

What starts out as an exciting opportunity to further study the furthest planet of their solar system, turns into his worst nightmare. An alien species from a galaxy far from their own captures them, separates him from his son and subordinate, force him to work in a slave encampment for just almost two years and dwindles all his hope on ever escaping from their version of a hell hole. For days and months, he yearns to go home, to his family—find his son first, and the subordinate like a son to him to bring them home too—and finally retire from active duty like he promised Colleen. To sigh in complete resignation when Katie pulls another one of her crazy stunts that aggravates her mother so very much, to laugh himself sick when Matt goes into an unneeded spiel on a what-should-be serious topic and completely derail the original discussion, and to cuddle with Colleen on the couch watching a movie from their time that their children call ‘ancient’. 

Against all odds, he survives the death trap that is the labor camp for the two years eating the meager food and unclean water all the slaves are fed. Then his daughter, his little spitfire girl, appears in flurry of white, green and black, electrocuting guards left and right with a whirlwind of red beside her. She busts him out of his single cell, grabbing onto him and pulls him along among the throng of escaping slaves. She flies him out in a giant robotic green lion while the freed slaves wreak havoc with another band of strangely dressed aliens swarming the Galra sentries. When they lift off, a red lion joins them under the cover of a black lion firing at the fighter jets swarming the skies and a blue lion tearing through the facility madly, chomping and roaring the entire way. Katie chatters with the red pilot, full of glee, until a screen with an orange haired man, with pointy ears and a spectacular mustache, pops up on the middle of her view screen. The male humanoid alien waves cheerfully at them and congratulates Katie on finding him, but chastises her and the red pilot at the same time for pulling a reckless stunt with a promising glint in his eyes.

Sam likes him immediately.  

Then the blue lion flies up toward them, dancing around the green lion in clear glee and the image of Matt in the cockpit of the lion pops up beside all the other visual screens. Their family reunion should have been heartwarming, after all, they haven’t been together for over two years and Sam’s heart can rest easier with the knowledge of Shiro’s safety when his former subordinate’s visual pops up beside Matt’s.

And it is, for all of ten minutes until Shiro comes down hard on Katie for her reckless behavior. The implications in Shiro’s rant makes his blood freeze and when he meets the male humanoid alien’s eyes, the other only closes his eyes and bows his head. The heavy feeling of _hurt_ that suddenly hangs in the air makes Sam’s heart stutter. He sees the agony and grief on the yellow pilot’s face that ages the young man’s face in an instant, the female humanoid alien’s face crumbling with pain, and the way the red pilot turns away from them with his shoulders tense and trembling fists locking by his sides. He sees the wild fury and fear in Shiro’s eyes when he grabs Katie and shakes her, bellowing into her face, and the flash of remorse on Katie’s face until stubbornness takes over.

He counts the pilots and the lions, and comes up short one pilot.

When he hears the story from Coran, his heart breaks. His daughter, his intelligent and socially inadept daughter gets herself caught up in an intergalactic space war and comes so close to death’s door, but lives because another child gives up his own life to protect hers. Nineteen-years-old. Old enough to get his driver’s license and marry, but not yet old enough to drink and certainly did not live his life to the fullest. Certainly, his Katie is young at the tender age of fifteen and he would be devastated if she died, but still, a child is dead because of a maniac alien overlord and his ten-thousand-year-old war, and it is clear to him that the entire ‘Voltron’ team is still in hurting terribly from this loss.

So his first action, even though he knows he has his own issues, is to be the grounding Coran needs to stabilize himself. It boggles Sam’s mind, how well Coran keeps himself together for the sake of the children, but as an adult himself, he can see the fissures and cracks in the mask the other has on to hide his pain and applauds him for staying so strong for the four months since the death of Lance. But even in his tears, Coran still puffs with pride when he talks about the boy and paints the image of him so vividly with the stories that Sam can practically see the child with his own two eyes. After the upheaval of feelings, Coran relaxes and thanks Sam profusely for listening to him.

Honestly, Sam thinks listening to Coran once is a tiny matter in comparison to the work the Altean does to keep Katie, Shiro and their friends in line for over a year. The man is a literal saint for putting up with six children fighting a war and keeping them on track.

(And no, despite Shiro’s age, Sam does not consider him an adult. He still remembers the terror that is a young first-year-cadet Takashi Shirogane pulling pranks on senior officers and taunting them with shit-eating grins when they can never trace it back to him. It is only after he gets the dressing down of his life for endangering a life does he shape up and stop his wild ways.

There _is_ a reason why the surviving senior officers call him _Shit-_ o-gane.)

Then Coran tells him the plethora of the problems plaguing the team.

Sam is honestly not surprised that the kids have racked up so many issues, but he’s more awed by the fact Coran is _still standing_ despite it all; heaven knows he would’ve thrown in the towel months ago, unable to deal with the growing pile of problems. So he does what he can, pushing aside _his_ feelings—with his children by his side, Sam finds himself vaguely content and declines Coran’s offers to have adult talk—and tries to help Coran the moment he is out of the healing pod machines to restart the stunted healing process by working on his stubborn daughter and Shiro.

He, unfortunately, does not yield any positive results with Katie and when he finds Shiro blatantly ignoring his issues to deal with his team’s, Sam smacks the back of his head and gives him the _real_ Dad Stare™ that makes Shiro flush in shame. But his ex-subordinate is obstinate in refusing any kind of help for his PTSD that Sam backs off. In less than a day with both Katie and Shiro being stubborn children and his lack of patience, Sam finds himself wondering how Coran has been dealing with them on his own. Unable to make conversation with his own daughter and his ex-subordinate who normally will take his advice to heart but now no longer does, he finds himself at a loss. He does not know the Princess Allura or the red pilot Keith—he recognizes the teenager as the Garrison’s then hot-headed ace pilot and Shiro’s charge under the Big Brother, Little Brother program—well enough to attempt talking to them, the former being of an alien race Sam knows nothing about and the latter exuding an aggressive ‘stay away’ aura that stamps out any possibility of Sam approaching him.

(Matt has the black eye to prove Keith’s aggressiveness, so Sam will not touch that hornet’s nest, and Coran insists that he has Allura under control.)

Two years, he thinks, there is no way things will be the same as he remembers. There is a darkness that lingers in every single one of the occupants of the Castle of Lions, and he can’t relate to it. So, he rests by the sides of his children and watches Coran, waiting for his opportunity to help.

Hunk is Coran’s obvious top priority; Sam doesn’t see a single hair of the yellow pilot again after their initial meeting until earlier that day when he comes across him. Coran, still haggard but looking far less likely to face plant and crumble to pieces, lights up when Sam catches him exiting a room with a bowl of food goo and crestfallen expression. Explaining his current predicament, Sam is more than happy to try his luck in coaxing the teenager into eating. One step into the room and he falters when he catches sight of the unmoving lump under the blankets, but his fatherly instincts throws him forward to help the boy and the pieces fall into place soon after. His heart can feel the agony that radiates off Hunk and he feels, just a touch, pleased to have given some help to bringing him back up to his feet. His heart swells with pride when Matt offers to follow along Coran and Hunk, and knows that the teenager will be in good hands.

But this now leaves Sam with the problematic ones; he does not know how he’s going to get through their thick skulls. While Coran’s unwavering faith in him is comforting, Sam doesn’t know if he can deliver.

“Pouting is not going to get you out of this young lady. I have no problems telling Coran that you’re being problematic and if he thinks he needs to drop you all off on the Karthulian system to get your act together, I’ll let him do it.”

“You don’t even know what happened!” Katie glowers at him with her arms crossed over her chest and her lips set with a stubborn frown.

“I’ve been _waiting_ for you to explain.” He says sharply, leveling his daughter with a stern stare. “As much as I’ve missed you and Matt dearly for the last two years and I’m thankful for the rescue from that awful slave camp, you haven’t spoken to me or made a single mention of your Blue Paladin friend in the last few days I’ve been here and I’ve been with you for majority of the time Katie. I’m not blind or deaf.”

She flushes and looks away, lips still firmly set in the stubborn frown. A sigh of aggravation escapes his lips before he can stop himself, and he can feel the tension stiffening his shoulders as his eyes sweep over the other four occupants of the room. Keith radiates rebelliousness, arms folded across his chest and flinty cold eyes bearing right into Sam as though sizing him up and finds him lacking, while Allura in contrast exudes gentle openness with her dainty hands lying on her lap and bright blue eyes wide with sad warmth. Shiro is lukewarm and noticeably distant, and Katie…

Is completely and utterly unreceptive to talking things out, and de-evolves into a pouting toddler ignoring everyone for not getting their way. Is this really his daughter?

“I don’t see why you need to stick your nose in our business.” Keith bristles, glaring daggers at Sam as he moves to stand. “So just fuck off.”

“ _Keith_.” Shiro growls as the tension skyrockets in the room, but Sam, with increasing agitation, cuts in.

“Excuse me for trying to understand what my daughter is going through.”

“Fuck you and mind your own fucking business asshole! Her business is none of yours!”

“ _KEITH!_ ” Shiro barks as Keith gnashes his teeth at Shiro, eyes wild with viciousness.

“Well it _isn’t_ his business! I don’t see why he has to poke his nose in and scold Pidge for not talking to him!” Keith storms forward toward Sam with blazing eyes. “I don’t care if you’re her old man! You don’t get to just waltz in here and start acting as though you’re entitled to whatever she’s been through! You don’t get to just order her to tell you anything! She’s not some fucking puppy you train to _obey_ you! It’s none of your fucking business, so just _fuck off_!”

The aggressive aura that rolls from Keith’s frame makes Sam freeze; as Keith comes closer towards him, hissing like a cat, Sam’s body goes rigid and he holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Suddenly he is back in the wet, dark and dreary cell of the Galra slave encampment, with his hands bound behind his back and lying sideways on the cold floor, and is waiting for the attacks on his person that is the guards’ daily entertainment and stress relief. It is easy to prepare himself for the onslaught of punches, kicks and choking, easy to feel which guard is feeling more aggressive on each day, knowing who to try to avoid on their days of boredom or when they are stressed beyond manageable.

It becomes second nature to him to prepare for a beating the moment he catches the feeling of aggressiveness. After all, he is nothing but a slave for the Galra’s laborious camp and their daily entertainment. Doctorate degree, military rank and achievement, all worth nothing in the wide expanse of the universe.

“Dad?”

 _Katie?_ He thinks, body still stiff in preparation for the impending assault. _Why is she here? She shouldn’t be in the hands of the Galra! She should be at home with Colleen!_

“Commander? Sam?”

_Shiro? Oh, thank gods the boy’s alive! But why has he been transferred here? And why isn’t Matt with him? Oh no, they’re not going to beat me in front of him, are they?_

“Dad! Dad, wake up!”

“Keith, back up! Back up now!”

“I-I didn’t…I didn’t mean to—”

“Shiro, I can try to—”

“ _Stay away from my dad!_ ”

“Pidge! Stop it! Don’t touch him! You’ll make it worse!”

A gentle warmth suddenly spreads through his stiff body; they start from the sides of his head and travels down to his hands and toes, gently washing over tense muscles that refuse to relax. The warmth prods him, coaxing him to open his eyes and breathe. He expels the held breath slowly, cracking his eyes open as he takes in air through his nostrils and comes face to face with a blurry multi-colored blob. Sam’s eyes squint, brow furrowing as he struggles to piece his mind together and the blob of colors lifts their hands away from hovering beside his ears and brings them to their chest. He blinks, eyes flickering to absorb his surroundings, and shakes his head as the Galra prison vanishes from his mind’s eye and sends him reeling.

“Samuel? Are you alright?”

He blinks at the blurry person, confusion painting his face as he tries to remember where he is. His surroundings are far too bright to be his prison cell, and the light isn’t menacing the same way the Druids’ laboratory is. But the tension and fear that riddles in his body scream for flight, to run far, far away from the danger still present within his vicinity. Vision sharpening, he meets the worried gaze of a female humanoid being with pointy ears with pink markings beneath her eyes, who stands in front of him in a non-threatening manner. Focusing on her, his face twitches as he attempts to grasp his thoughts.

“…Is this a dream?”

“No.” She says softly, expression pinching with further worry. “You are here with us Samuel, in the Castle of Lions, home to Voltron. With your daughter Katie, your son Matthew and subordinate Shiro.”

His eyes focus on the female being, then flickers to their surroundings where he sees a vaguely familiar tall young man clothed in black holding back a small person who looks astonishingly like his son and a young man in red pressing his back against a wall. Eyes blinking blankly at the familiar young man and the not-Matt in his arms, his mouth runs without a thought.

“Is she really?”

“What do you mean Samuel?”

“Is she really my Katie- _bambina_?” He whispers, cocking his head to the side as he continues to stare blankly. “My Katie- _bambina_ always makes me happy when she’s around, but I don’t feel happy. Is she really my Katie- _bambina_?”

Not-Matt’s expression crumbles, as the black clad young man’s face ashen. The female being quickly lifts her hands to hover beside his temples and another wave of warmth washes over his head.

“You are not in the Galra’s slave camp anymore Samuel.” She says soothingly, hands hovering beside his temple, but not touching him, circle the sides of his head vertically as his eyes drift back to meet hers. “Those Galra will not hurt you again. You are safe Samuel. Katie is here. Matthew is here. Shiro is here. You are all safe here Samuel; safe and alive.”

He continues to stare at her blankly, still uncomprehending, as the warmth spreads down from his head to his shoulders, arms, torso, tips of his fingers, hips, legs and toes. The muscles relax as his mind grapples about, and immediately stiffens when reality smashes into his face again. The soothing warmth vanishes the next instant when he steps backwards away from Allura, his posture rigid and his face wipes of any feeling completely. His eyes swipe to the distress on Katie’s face, the pained understanding one on Shiro, Allura’s worried and gentle gaze, and Keith’s deer-in-headlights stance.

It’s been less than half an hour. Internally, he apologizes to Coran; Sam cannot handle them like the Altean does. He can’t even handle himself.

“This is no different from the camp.” He finally whispers in the dead silence. “I didn’t feel safe there, and I don’t feel safe here.”

He strides out swiftly with stiff shoulders, squeezing his eyes shut when Katie cries out for him. Sam does not look back.

 

**~*~**

 

Sam wanders the numerous corridors of the castle aimlessly for hours until he finds himself in the wide expanse of a hanger bay. He moves quietly towards the majestic lion sitting on their haunches behind the glow of their barrier, pausing when he feels yellow eyes follow his movements. The lion rumbles, almost as though questioning his presence, as he resumes his walking towards them and presses a hand against the pulsing blue barrier, delighting in the gentle coolness that creeps across his skin and spreads over him soothingly. Blue Lion hunches downwards, barrier still in place, and presses its muzzle to where Sam is with a curious sounding purr.

“Hello.” He greets softly, smiling as the lion returns his greeting with a happy sounding chirp. “Would it bother you terribly if this old man stays here and chat with you?”

His brows rise in astonishment when the Blue Lion chirps again and releases its barrier to allow him to get closer to it. Hadn’t Coran mentioned that the Voltron Lions won’t release their barriers unless for their chosen pilots…?

Well he certainly hopes this isn’t the case and Blue Lion is just simply amenable to having company.

Sam strides forward as the giant mechanical robot lion pushes its front paws forward and stretches out its back with its tail whipping about lazily, to his amusement, like a normal domestic housecat. He releases a quiet laugh as Blue Lion purrs and settles down, resting on its belly and crosses its front paws under its chin in a way that makes its paws look like steps or ledges for Sam to climb upwards to the upper side of its head. With a chuckle, he slowly makes his way up, carefully stepping on the sharp claws of Blue Lion and eventually, settles himself between the lion’s shoulder joint and ear. He pets the warm pulsing metal beside him and Blue Lion purrs again, its body vibrating in sync with the purr.

“Thank you dear. You’re quite the friendly one, aren’t you?”

Blue Lion huffs that sounds like a dainty sort of sniff, and Sam laughs softly. They stay this way for a while, Blue Lion rumbling softly and Sam petting the side of her metal cheek. Then, the giant metal muzzle shifts and a yellow eye peers down at Sam, a ‘Mrrow?’ sound rumbling from somewhere near Blue Lion’s throat.

Exactly like a housecat, only bigger. Much, _much_ , bigger. He sighs, leaning against metal cheek and basks in the gentle warmth.

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” He murmurs, pressing his cheek against Blue Lion’s. “On one hand, I know I’m not hallucinating being out of the Galra camp and I should be _happy_ to be free of that hellhole, but I still can’t help but feel that this is all too good to be true and once I go to sleep and wake up next, I’ll be back in that godforsaken place again hoping I’ll die. Being woken up every day by an electric shock to the side and work hours and hours mining and digging for materials with only two meals of moldy blobs and small drops of water. If I’m not in the mines, I’m getting experimented on by the Druids in their labs, drugged, poked and prodded. See what makes the human tick, what’s poisonous to them, how long can the human survive without this, or this, or this.”

“Maybe the Druids just gave me a drug that causes hallucinations, that I’m hallucinating being saved by my daughter and son, but I’m actually not free.”

Absently, he continues petting the cooling metal of Blue Lion’s cheek as a low whine of distress vibrates from its throat.

“I can’t tell if she’s really my Katie- _bambina_.” He whispers, closing his eyes as Blue Lion’s head jerks a little and the giant robot lion releases a startled ‘Mrr?!’. “The last I remember, my Katie- _bambina_ wasn’t so…so…disrespectful. Oh, my wife would have punished her so badly for the way she was talking to me just now. Colleen did tell me that Katie would one day take advantage of me never giving punishments for any time she becomes overly rude. But I’ve never really needed to punish her, no matter what Colleen says, because Katie always… she always listens to me. I’ve never needed to raise my voice at her or anything. She’s an intelligent child, she can figure out what she does wrong so long as I point her in the right direction and give her some time to figure out why we’re upset, so she doesn’t need punishment. But this—”

“She just shut me out.” Sam’s side presses against Blue Lion’s cheek and the low whine of distress fills the air again. “She’s never done this to me; shut me out completely and refuse to talk at all. She hasn’t even done any thinking about why or what I wanted her to think about. Has she really become so self-centered that nothing else matters but her own thoughts? When did she become so _angry_?”

“And that boy, Keith? I don’t know what on Earth he’s been through, but how did he come to the conclusion that I’m trying to _control_ Katie? He acted as though…as though I was going to _hit_ her.” Burying his face into his hands, Sam vaguely hears a deeper rumble from Blue Lion, like a growl. “How could he think that? That’s my baby girl, at least she has the face of my baby girl, and I just want to help her! If I don’t point her in the right direction, she’ll be worse! I didn’t raise my girl to be so self-absorbed and spiteful! She’s still so young, so impressionable, and she may be intelligent, but there’s still so much she doesn’t understand.”

“And Shiro. Oh god that boy.” He moans and scrubs his hands against his face before dropping them down to his lap. “He’s an absolute stubborn one, but he at least took my advice and didn’t just toss it out the window. All I want to do is _help_ him, I’m not ordering him to do things, I don’t even have any kind of authority over him, but I’ve see, experienced and I _know_ how bad PTSD can be. I’ve been in the military for thirty years, thirty! I didn’t become a scientist when I first joined the military, I was a goddamn soldier. I’ve seen comrades who don’t see proper help and go mad within a few weeks. Many of them don’t ever heal because they don’t want to face it and they all end up committing suicide. I don’t want him to end up like them.”

“Matt’s less of an issue because at least he’s talked to me a little, but he’s not going to tell me everything because of this gigantic mess here.”

“This place…this place is worse than the slave camp.” A tear rolls down his cheek. “Because it’s taunting me; I’m free, my little girl is here, my son is here, the boy I could easily take in as my other son is here. I should be happy, but they aren’t who I remember, don’t want my help and it hurts.”

“What a useless old man I am.” He laughs a hollow sound as Blue Lion whines. “Can’t even get my children to talk to help them. I don’t know how Coran does it; wouldn’t it have been better if I had died in that camp, and they wouldn’t have to bother about me?”

Blue Lion rumbles lowly, shifting its head slightly for a yellow eye to gaze down at Sam almost critically. It lifts its head when the sound of the hanger doors swishing open and huffs, eliciting Sam’s interest enough for him to sit himself up and crane his neck toward the door. Coran walks in sedately, hands behind his back as he strides up toward Blue Lion and gives Sam a jaunty wave.

“Ah, there you are Samuel! I see you’ve found a friend in our Blue Lion.”

The lion huffs, moving slowly as its body shifts to curl without jostling its companion and hides Sam from direct sight of the hanger doors. Sam leans to his side to catch a glimpse of Coran stroking his mustache, deep in thought.

“Fascinating…I’ve never seen a lion be so protective over someone who isn’t their Paladin…very fascinating indeed.” Coran muses out loud with wonder, watching Blue Lion carefully until he shakes his head. “Well, I can assure you my dear, I’m not here to force him into anything. In fact, if Samuel is amenable, I would be honored to simply sit by him to keep him company with you.”

“It’s alright.” Sam smiles softly when Blue Lion shifts its head to stare at him once more, as though questioning him. “I suppose it’s time the two adults got to have another talk.”

Despite its protective stance, Blue Lion easily shifts to allow Coran access to climb up where Sam is. When Coran reaches her paws, the blue barrier winks into existence, keeping both men inside with Blue Lion. The Altean makes an offhanded remark about the gentle nature of Blue Lion when he reaches Sam’s perch on Blue Lion’s shoulder, nestling himself comfortably beside Sam. He doesn’t make Sam talk, instead, Coran talks about the progress he and Matt have made with Hunk and how, when they return to the common room, they find Keith and Shiro in a heated argument, Katie crying on the couch with Allura carefully watching them but clearly unsure of how to intervene. He tells him about Matt’s spectacular explosion, after Allura quietly tells them her version of what transpired in their absence and Coran checks the video footage to verify it, giving the three Paladins a tongue lashing and even pining Keith to the floor with his staff when the Red Paladin tries to fight back. He doesn’t tell Sam what Matt’s exact words are, just that his son is ball of unstoppable fury when angry and that Coran likes him very, very much.

Blue Lion purrs happily as Coran continues to chatter, lulling Sam into a peaceful head space, and continues to purr lowly even when they fall silent. The purrs halt when the doors swish open again and allow Matt and Hunk entrance to Blue Lion’s hanger bay, the former staring very warily at Blue Lion and the latter with barest hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. Blue Lion raises its head to stare at the new arrivals as they step toward its barrier, its tail flicking about lazily, and tilts its head to look down at them when they reach the pulsing barrier. Matt half hides behind Hunk as the Yellow Paladin presses his hand against the blue force field, suspicion clear in his voice as his words promising retribution should Blue Lion try to take another bite out of him carry up to the adults’ perch on Blue Lion’s shoulder and makes Coran and Sam laugh. Blue Lion huffs, snapping its jaws playfully toward Matt as it lowers its head towards Hunk when he quietly greets it, his lips curving into a sad smile with his hand stroking the barrier gently. It purrs in response, blue light flashing in the hanger bay as its barrier drops, and arranges its paws to allow Hunk and Matt a path to Coran and Sam. The boys waste no time in climbing up and settling with them on her shoulder, though Hunk curls himself in a tiny corner below them, pressing his side against Blue Lion’s muzzle and strokes the metal cheek while murmuring softly to it.

When the four of them settle comfortably and Matt begins asking Coran and Hunk multitudes of questions about their lives in the castle, Blue Lion purrs and its blue barrier winks back into existence. As he nestles in the inviting warmth of the Blue Lion and listens to Coran, Matt and Hunk chatter softly close by, Sam closes his eyes and breathes.

 _Safe_ , the warmth coos as it spreads over his body. _Not alone_. Sam embraces it and sighs softly.

Hours of exchanging stories later, they finally leave the protective bubble that is Blue Lion’s particle barrier, unable to resist the call of their beds. But they meet with heavy resistance; Blue Lion refuses to release its barrier and is adamant on keeping them right by it, as though wanting to protect them from whoever else is in the castle. It takes them a fair amount of time to persuade the lion to let its barrier down by the way of solemnly promising to fix every single one of their existing problems and add in a few bribes to visit it when they have spare time. Well, at least Sam, Hunk and Coran do. When Matt only agrees to visit under the condition that someone asks him to go along, Blue Lion releases a rumble that vibrates amusement throughout its hanger that makes them all smile. Hunk lingers to caress Blue Lion’s muzzle gently, whispering words Sam cannot hear to the purring lion with an expression of longing nostalgia on his face before he finally tears himself away from it. And for all of Matt’s complaints about his horrible first meeting with Blue Lion, Sam can still see him lag behind to gaze up at Blue Lion with a smile and give its muzzle a pat.

Sam ends up in his room after dropping Hunk and Matt off in theirs and bids Coran good night. With a sigh, he drops backwards to lie on the bed without changing his clothes and prays for a better tomorrow.

 

**~*~**

 

Sam wakes to a mighty roar that reverberates through the castle. Jumping out of bed, he scrambles out of his room to see Coran running down the corridor, normally immaculately slicked back hair in complete disarray. He hurries behind Coran, catching up to the other quickly enough, down to the shared hanger bay where they find all the lions surrounding the growling Blue Lion standing in the middle of the bay with its particle barrier up. When he and Coran get closer, they find the entire Paladin team, the Princess and Matt beneath Blue Lion’s standing body.

Blue Lion hisses and growls, snapping its jaws when Red Lion pounces forward onto its shield and tries to claw through it but ultimately fail. Black Lion rumbles commandingly at Blue Lion, who scoffs and swivels its head to the side as though snubbing the command. While the lions rumble, growl, hiss and scratch at the barrier, Sam can see Keith emerging from the shadow of Blue Lion’s belly to shout at it, waving a fist in the air before stalking over to its barrier and smashes his fist against it. The rest teeter out from the shadow of Blue Lion’s body, all of them wearing a wide array of expressions, ranging from bewilderedness to complete awkwardness.

“My word!” Coran shouts, gaining the attention of the squabbling lions, the lone Altean Princess and group of humans as he strides towards the center of the hanger bay with Sam close behind. “What in the name of Voltron is going on here?!”

“Coran!” Relief spreads across the Princess’s face when she sees them. “Blue Lion moved herself from her hanger to here sometime last night and the other Lions noticed and informed the Paladins and myself about the moving this morning. We all had the similar idea of coming down to the hanger bay to check on her.”

“There…um. We might have also had a small disagreement as to how to approach Blue Lion about her recent behavior…” Allura hesitates, fiddling with her fingers as she bows her head while several of her companions stuck with her behind the barrier turn their gazes away. “And Blue Lion became…hostile. She covered us all and erected her particle barrier and hasn’t let us out since. She won’t listen to any of us, or any of the Lions!”

Sam almost asks how Matt gets himself involved in _this_ mess. But then Black Lion growls, bumping its nose against the blue barrier. Blue Lion snaps its jaws in the direction of Black Lion, roaring in anger as it looms over the Altean and humans within its barrier. Blue Lion rears back on its haunches to stare down at them, yellow eyes flashing briefly before a hologram of the youngsters appear in front of them, playing an explosive scene to Coran and Sam.

Small disagreement. What an understatement. From the way Coran’s mustache is twitching, Sam is sure he shares the same sentiments.

But Blue Lion doesn’t stop there. When the holographic video ends, it snaps its jaws again, this time towards Katie. With surprising finesse, it carefully pushes the bridge of its nose against her back and rolls her onto the top of its nose. It lifts its head, impervious to the squawking of the other Paladins on the ground, taking Katie along with it. Blue Lion growls, eyes flashing again, but Sam cannot see what it shows Katie from the ground. Whatever Blue Lion is doing beyond his line of sight makes the other lions pause from scratching its barrier and the giant mechanical robots all take a step back. When Blue Lion finishes whatever it does with Katie, it lowers its head and tilts downwards to roll the sniffling Katie into the arms of Hunk before going straight for Keith.

Its jaws open wide and it _clamps over him_ before the Red Paladin has a chance to dash away. Red Lion releases a startled roar, ramming its head against the particle barrier repeatedly while Shiro screams up at Blue Lion to release Keith, but Blue Lion remains undeterred. It sits back on its haunches, tilting its head up to the ceiling and _spits_ Keith upwards. The teenager flails in the air and lands onto Blue Lion’s nose with a loud thud that makes everyone wince. A dark growl rumbles from Blue Lion as its eyes flash again, this time at Keith, and Sam finds himself surprised when Keith doesn’t just ignore Blue Lion and climb down its body; whatever Blue Lion is showing Keith, is enough to keep him there to listen, and Red Lion finally settles down with an unhappy growl. Once Blue Lion finishes with Keith, it rolls him off its nose in the same manner as Katie, only this time it drops him right at Allura, who hurriedly manages to catch Keith before he hits the floor, before bringing its mighty muzzle to over to Shiro. 

Sam watches in fascination as Shiro and Blue Lion have their stare down, though Shiro is struggling to keep his stare steady. After a while of tense silence, Shiro caves in and willingly allows Blue Lion to nudge him up onto its nose and into the air. Sam’s eyes wander to the remaining teenagers on the ground, brows rising to his hairline when he notices that Katie and Keith aren’t actively being hostile towards Allura. Katie clings onto Matt as he talks with Hunk and Allura, while Keith hovers awkwardly around, his gaze switching between his teammates to Blue Lion’s head where Shiro is. It doesn’t take very long and soon, Blue Lion deposits a shaking Shiro back on the ground but doesn’t release the barrier. The lion sits back on its haunches and stares down at the team gathered at its paws with gleaming eyes. A large holographic image appears at Blue Lion’s chest level, flashing symbols Sam doesn’t recognize, but then the image pixelates and flashes a single Earth word.

 _Apologize_.

Then Blue Lion stretches it back as it did the day before when Sam paid it a visit, and lies on the floor, gazing at them critically as its tail swishes about lazily.

Sam stares at Blue Lion with wide eyes, and turns to the equally flabbergasted Coran.

“What did Blue Lion just do?”

“The lions have never communicated through their sensors like this before…! And to translate Altean to Earth language too…”

“Who does Blue Lion want to apologize to who?” Matt asks from within the barrier, catching Coran and Sam’s attention as he looks at Katie, Keith and Shiro. “The three of you are the only ones it really ‘talked’ to.”

When the aforementioned trio only shift about awkwardly, Blue Lion huffs and extends a paw out to nudge Katie’s back with a single claw. Katie jumps at the contact, whirling around to stare at Blue Lion, who only huffs again and growls. Its eyes shift to Keith, repeating the growl and does the same to Shiro before another holographic image appears flashing a different set of symbols before it pixelates again to form a string of unconnected Earth words.

_Angry. Bad. Family. Father. Princess. Important. Love._

Sam catches a gist of what Blue Lion is demanding and wonders if it shared with Katie, Keith and Shiro their one-sided conversation from the day before. Blue Lion rumbles, nudging Katie and Keith toward the wide-eyed Allura, then looks up to meet Sam’s gaze.

A giant magical alien robot lion giving people wake up calls. Colleen would have gotten such a kick out of it.

When they still don’t move, Blue Lion growls louder and flashes yet another holographic image that makes Hunk choke.

 _For Lance_.

The Paladins still as Allura’s face ashen. Matt on the other hand, who has been watching them carefully, nods in understanding.

“So…you’re saying you want these guys to kiss and make up because Lance wouldn’t have wanted them to be acting like dickheads to each other?”

Blue Lion purrs.

“So, I’m pretty sure you want Katie and Mister Grumpy-Pants have to apologize to Allura…but Shiro? And why’s Hunk gotta go through this when he hasn’t done anything wrong? Why am _I_ here anyway?!”

Blue Lion huffs and flashes another set of holographic images.

_Father. Sad. Suffering. Wishing.  Red. Green. Black. Apologize._

_Yellow. Sad. Red. Green. Black. No help. Orange. Father. Mice. Help._

Sam notices that Blue Lion doesn’t answer Matt’s last question.

“Dad?” Matt’s whisper is loud in the sudden silence, even the other lions have grown quiet, and Sam cautiously meets his son’s widened eyes. “Dad, you—”

Sam looks away as shame colors his cheeks. A hand rests on his shoulder and squeezes gently, and gasps echo from within the barrier separating Sam and Coran from the younger ones. Blue Lion rumbles, bringing its head up to stare down at the Paladins like a stern parent. With another huff, the blue barrier winks out of existence and immediately, Sam finds his arms full of his children.

Katie babbles a series of ‘I’m sorry!’ as she buries her face into his chest, her arms squeezing around his thin body with surprising strength, while Matt hugs him firmly as he buries his face into Sam’s neck. Sam takes a moment, then finally wraps his arms around his children and hugs them back, burying his face into their fluffy hair. He catches sight of Coran to his side, smiling softly while his hand still stays on Sam’s shoulder, a comfortable weight that grounds him, and the other children hovering close by. Shiro has a stricken expression over his face, while guilt etches across Keith’s, and Hunk and Allura watch him with looks of pain and sadness.

Just as he opens his mouth to speak, Blue Lion begins moving and catches everyone’s attention. Getting up onto its feet, it saunters through the gap between the other lions towards the shared hanger bay door. Moving in a circle, it then lies across the entrance of the door after lazily stretching its body out. They all stare at it as it opens its mouth in a mocking display of yawning and lying its head on top of its paws as its tail flicks about.

Matt suddenly bursts out laughing.

“Are you—” Matt’s body quivers in Sam’s arms as he struggles through his giggles. “—are you seriously going asshole cat on us?”

“ _Dude_.” Hunk whispers reverently, eyes lighting up as though Christmas had come early. “Dude! Blue’s _totally_ gone asshole cat on us!”

“And you’re happy about this…why?” Keith stares blankly at Hunk who starts giggling alongside with Matt while a small smile tugs at Shiro’s lips and Katie snorts into Sam’s shirt.

“Because it’s funny!” Matt laughs, sharing a grin with Hunk. “I mean, look at him! A gigantic magical robot lion that can destroy a fuck-ton of shit, acting like a normal domestic Earth cat! The cat that does all the asshole shit to get what they want. Oh man, if Lance taught Blue Lion how Earth cats work, he is my new hero!”

As if on cue, Blue Lion activates its particle barrier and completely blocks off the door. Katie finally caves to the hilarity and erupts into giggles, while Sam stares at Blue Lion in bemusement.

“Well now.” Coran claps his hands to gain everyone’s attention. “It seems that Blue Lion is adamant that we all, I believe your Earth term was, ‘clear the air’ amongst us. It does look as though she’s not going to let us go until everything is settled in front of her.”

“But Blue! What about food?”

“And toilets?!”

Blue Lion makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sniff and lifts its nose upwards daintily. Green and Yellow Lion rumble with laughter while Red Lion scoffs and Black Lion shakes its mighty head. Sam allows a laugh to escape his lips as he squeezes Katie and Matt one more time before patting their shoulders and gazes at each person present, resting on Coran last.

“I suppose we should get to it then. Otherwise I think we all might have to resort to bribing Blue Lion to let us out.”

“But…”

Blue Lion growls, startling them, and Coran and Sam exchange wiry smiles. Sam pats the top of Katie’s head.

“I don’t think Blue Lion’s going to take no for an answer.”

“The sooner we sit down and have a proper talk,” Coran quips from Sam’s side, gesturing toward the floor. “The sooner we can all take our leave.”

Sam pats his children’s shoulders one more time and dislodges them from his arms to settle on the floor. Katie sits on his lap, cuddling him while Matt sticks closely to Sam’s side. Hunk sits by Matt’s other side and Coran to Sam’s, and Shiro sits between Allura and Keith to complete their circle. As Shiro starts off the talk, Sam hugs Katie and Matt close. Blue Lion purrs softly from its position by the door as the other lions settle down in various spots of the hanger bay, surrounding the team in a protective circle. Sam relaxes to the soft purring and the warmth of his children pressing against his body as Shiro looks to him, guilt marring his features, and begins the first round of apologies.

The atmosphere is not heavy as it was the day before. Katie is not stubbornly erecting walls all over her to hide, neither is Shiro, Keith’s aggressiveness is far dimmer than before, and Hunk is more stable and looks more alive than Sam has ever seen him.  

Apologies were not going to magically make everything alright. Sam knows he will be wary whenever he encounters Keith, he knows he will still have nightmares about the Galra slave camp and wonder if he truly is free, and he knows he will have episodes of anxiety and panic. But at least it paves the way to healing and Sam can hope that everything will turn out alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way the apologies go, let your imaginations go wild. But they all turn out ok, just saying ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ
> 
> Let's face it, Keith has issues with authority and adults in general. He would not react well to a sudden new adult addition who's suddenly butting into the Paladin's business.  
> And Pidge probably wouldn't be sharing everything that happens to her dad, especially details about her fellow Paladin who died to save her.  
> Shiro is pretty much self-explanatory. 
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed the read!


	9. Bringing in New Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt feels like an odd piece out in the jigsaw puzzle that is Voltron. It's hard to help when three quarters of the remainder of the Voltron team can be emotionally stupid eighty percent of the time.  
> Also: Blue Lion is the ultimate asshole cat.  
>  __  
> 'With some patience and a lot of prodding, Matt finds out that Shiro is ashamed of his lack of knowledge of Lance the person that he doesn’t dare to speak of Lance in fear of sullying the memory of him because the only few things he knows of Lance is that he has a big family, was a homesick child who didn’t take things seriously and enjoys flirting. He admits to never spending any time with Lance to truly get to know the boy behind the flirty exterior, never wanting to know more about him, shunning him by revolving his world around his chosen protégé and only realizes how much more the boy was until after the teenager dies to protect Pidge.
> 
> _Matt smacks the back of Shiro’s head and levels an expression of disappointment at him then because, good god, when had Shiro become so bad at interacting and getting to know people?!'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you think you've gotten time to write, life sucker punches you in the gut and suddenly you don't have time anymore. And when you do, nothing you've written seems fitting and you re-do it many, many times. (◞‸◟；)  
> Thanks for your patience and all your support! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ  
> Here is Matt's chapter! There should be less angst here because Matt is a pretty chill bean.  
> Season 4 was another wild ride huh? But where's my Hunk centric episode? :(  
> May the feels be with you all! 
> 
> (This chapter is unbeta-ed)

**Bringing in New Shoes**

**~*~**

 

Ever since Blue Lion’s intervention, team Voltron begins to heal bit by bit, day by day. Katie and Keith slowly open themselves to Allura who welcomes them with open arms, Shiro starts actively talking and listening to his dad, his dad has daily talks with Coran and Hunk starts living properly again. Matt can tell, he swears he can, that Blue Lion is utterly pleased with itself for his work, but apparently wants the team to hurry up with their healing. He often makes the entire team scramble to his hanger every other day and locks them in the hanger bay for at least an hour or so, sometimes even longer, before allowing them to leave.

He’d been given the chance to observe one of their sessions when he follows Hunk to Blue Lion’s hanger, and promptly laughs himself sick when he finds out what the Lion has been making them do. From then on, he’s either with them in the hanger, suffering whatever Blue Lion is making them do, or up on the bridge watching the video feeds with Coran and his dad and laughing his brains off. While their first meeting is not the most beautiful of all meetings, probably the _worst_ first meeting ever to be known, Blue Lion quickly becomes Matt’s favorite lion amongst the Voltron Lions and he needs only two words to describe it in all his glory.

Asshole cat.

Apparently, the lion was taking the team’s brokenness to heart and wants to make sure that the team continues to heal and not suddenly fracture back to pieces. And Matt deduces, because of him being a giant robot space cat that obviously can’t wander around the Castle of Lions the way the team can, he forces them to come to it by either by releasing a roar that vibrates the entire castle or wrecks his hanger bay like a cat pushing glasses off a table to get attention, and once the team is in the hanger bay, locks them with it and watches them intently as though prodding them to prove to him that they were still bonding and that their camaraderie is not just a farce. If they aren’t following the program, he will poke them with a claw, doing all sorts of asshole-cat moves like batting them around like a ball, being right in their faces Matt remembers seeing on YouTube or blocking the hanger bay doors with his body and barrier to prevent them from walking away. The one time the team is too tired to talk to each other in one of their sessions and Blue Lion uses up all his asshole-cat moves to no avail, he finally decides to let them rest by gathering them into a pile and curls protectively around them.

Coran and his dad have taken to leaving a sizable stash of blankets and pillows in Blue Lion’s hanger so that the Paladins and Princess can make themselves comfortable as the mother henning Blue Lion watches over them, and Matt’s pretty sure Coran is in cahoots with Blue Lion because he never clamors for attention in the middle of any of their training sessions, meal times, or when an important call comes in. And if any one of them pays him a solo visit, including his dad, the Lion devotes his entire focus to them and only allows others to join in with their permission or will otherwise turn them away by flicking on his barrier. He knows that Hunk, Coran and his dad visit Blue Lion the most, each of them finding peace and stable grounding that helps them continue with daily activities, while others drop by occasionally when they want comfort from the giant blue space cat. Matt has come to dub them ‘Blue Lion Therapy’ sessions. It catches on with the rest quickly and soon everyone in the castle is using the term. Matt is the only one—at least to his knowledge— who has not gone on a one-on-one session with Blue Lion, content to push the others, particularly his dad, to healing their shattered psyches and rebuild their bridges. He considers himself lucky to have been found by this particular rebel group and received the alien version of counselling that helps him through the trauma of his capture and subsequent fighting in the war, so he finds his mental well-being far more stable than his father’s and Shiro’s combined.

He’s sad to leave them, but they have been nothing but supportive of his goal in finding his father and ultimately making his way back to Earth. While the rebels have lost him as a member, they did receive the bonus of an alliance with _the_ Voltron, team of bright big targets-ahem-defenders of the universe whose been saving planets left, right and center. And the other bonus is that he doesn’t need to wear the hideous rebel armor twenty-four-seven anymore. It’s been a few weeks, maybe even a month he thinks, and Matt has no idea what he’s going to do here on the castle ship. Voltron is a puzzle, wherein each person on the Castle ship is a piece, an ever-changing piece of jigsaw, that fits the puzzle together. But he’s not a Paladin, so he can’t fly a lion and join the space fighting, and there’s not many chances of him needing to follow them into a Galra base as backup. Hunk and Katie, _Pidge_ —holy geez, his baby sister used his old nickname for her as her alias because once upon a time she adored Pokémon so much she kept on making ‘Pidgey!’ noises because it was her favorite bird—, cover all the lions’ repairs and schematics, Coran does the castle ship works, Allura is THE commander, Shiro and Grumpy-pants are the muscle, and his dad basically advises them on their tactics. Sure, Matt could do the same, offering his own insights with his experience in fighting, but there’s literally nothing else for him that seems…sufficient, enough in the Castle.

Nevertheless, he hangs around every person living on the ship, except the Angry Bird of the Voltron team who always seems to not be around outside of training sessions and Blue Lion Group Therapy sessions. He helps his dad and Coran around the castle as much as he can, chattering with them about different alien species and the like, and trades tactics with Allura now and then, offering the insight of his own fighting experience with her that she gladly takes on board. He spars with Shiro, poking and prodding his friend with his staff while spouting random fun facts that always makes Shiro lose focus and secures his win for the round, geeks out with Pidge over the lions’ schematics, sternly reminding his sister of meal times and ‘Don’t you give me that face you little gremlin, go to bed _damnit_ ’ and certainly hangs out with Hunk in the kitchens, worshipping the teenager’s culinary skills and listens to the stories of the planets the Paladins have all been to. The topic of Lance will come up often and all of them but one—or maybe it was two…?—is open to talking about him, with much fond amusement and love. Keith is never around for any of the talks and Matt’s beginning to believe that the Red Paladin was nothing more than a ghost. Then with some patience and _a lot_ of prodding, Matt finds out that Shiro is _ashamed_ of his lack of knowledge of Lance the person that he doesn’t dare to speak of Lance in fear of sullying the memory of him because the only few things he knows of Lance is that he has a big family, was a homesick child who didn’t take things seriously and enjoys flirting. He admits to never spending any time with Lance to truly get to know the boy behind the flirty exterior, never _wanting_ to know more about him, shunning him by revolving his world around his chosen protégé and only realizes how much more the boy was until after the teenager dies to protect Pidge.

Matt smacks the back of Shiro’s head and levels an expression of disappointment at him then because, good _god_ , when had Shiro become so bad at interacting and getting to know people?! But it certainly explains the black cloud of guilt that rains over the top of Shiro’s head whenever Hunk shares stories of Lance and himself at the Garrison, how much Lance worshipped Shiro as his hero and tried so hard to get himself into the fighter pilot level, and while a part of Matt wants to sympathize with Shiro, the bigger part of him is _fuming_ at how huge Shiro’s biasness is towards his team members. He’s not surprised to find that Shiro only visits Blue Lion alone once, before the guilt and shame gets to him, that he doesn’t dare to face the Lance’s beloved Lion again.

Speaking of solo visits to the asshole cat…

Matt spies the Grouch slinking through the corridors late in the night, clad in an oversized green jacket with a white hoodie that _definitely_ does not look like something that he would own. His gossip sense tingles as Grumpy turns and disappears down a stairway, and so Matt stealthily follows, peeking out from corners to catch a glimpse of the tail end of the fluttering jacket that is far too long on the Red Paladin until he sees the jacket disappear behind the giant doors to Blue Lion’s hanger bay. He hesitates then, knowing how sacred the Blue Lion Therapy sessions are to all the Paladins, but the little gossiper in him wants to know what exactly the Grinch is such a sourpuss for ninety percent of his existence. So, he ducks into a vent, wiggles his way through to the vent above and closest to Blue Lion and presses himself flat on the bottom of the vent as he watches the now Not-So-Grumpy-Grump stand before the majestic lion, the expression on his face one of the softest and most longing Matt has ever seen from him. The jacket is impossibly baggy on his frame, sleeves so long it covers his hands completely and the length of the jacket reaches down to his mid-thigh. It’s certainly not a normal Grump-esque jacket, but he’s thumbing the black cuffs of the jacket so forlornly and with so much fondness, as though the jacket is a well-loved item he is treasuring. Gru- _Keith_ , brings the flappy sleeves to his face and breathes in, Matt watches in fascination as the Red Paladin revels in the scent on the jacket before his shoulders sag and he abruptly sits down on the cold metal floor.

He stares up at the silent Lion with eyes filled with pain.

“I want him back.” Keith whispers in the silence, but it catches in the air and floats to Matt’s ears in the vent.

Matt quickly pushes himself deeper into the vent; he really shouldn’t listen in to Keith’s session with Blue Lion.

(He stays in the vent and listens the Keith spill his emotions out to Blue Lion anyway. He even crawls closer to watch them.)

“I kept on fighting with him, over every single small thing! Allura was always scolding him to take things seriously, Shiro didn’t spend any time with him, Pidge never liked him hanging around her lab…” Keith sucks in a lungful of air as his shoulders sag. “How could he still love us when we never treated him well?”

Yellow eyes flicker and a small holographic image of two Earth words appear in front of Keith. Matt takes a moment, squinting his eyes to read the words ‘ _.ylimɒ_ _ᖷ_ _.noɿƚloV’_ and watches Keith’s face twist into a series of expressions so quickly that he almost misses them. Shock. Pain. Anger. Resignation. Sadness. The Red Paladin reaches forward to trace the _‘.ylimɒ_ _ᖷ_ _’_ holograph as it fizzles and vanishes, only for the word _‘.ɘvo_ _⅃_ _’_ to take its place. Beside it, _‘.ɘɔnɒ_ _⅃_ _’_ replaces ‘. _noɿƚloV’_.

“Yea.” Keith murmurs, gaze falling to the floor and the corners of his lips curve downwards. “I love him too.”

Keith is quick to uncurl from the floor and scampers out of the hanger bay with shoulders slumped forward and fingers clutching sides of the sleeves of the jacket tightly. Matt blinks, realization lighting in his eyes as he stares over to the closing hanger bay doors as Blue Lion, facing the same direction, emits of a mournful whine.

Matt takes a moment to parse through Keith’s session with Blue Lion; he has no idea what relationship Keith had with Lance, but he has a sinking feeling that Shiro isn’t the only one who didn’t treat the former Blue Paladin very well. Matt feels like banging his head against a wall; his mind wails in despair on just how utterly emotionally stupid seventy-five percent of the remaining ‘Defenders of the Universe’ are. He does smash his head against the vent wall when yellow flashes in the vent opening in front of him, and yelps when he sees a yellow optic staring straight at him and an amused sounding purr resonates from outside the vent. With a grumble, he crawls forward, popping the vent open and sticks his head out to stare right into Blue Lion’s eyes. The robot purrs again, shifting forward to press his nose against the bottom of the vent, as though offering Matt a lift down from the high height of the vent.

“How the hell did you know I was in there?” Matt grumbles, slipping out the vent and onto the warm metal of Blue Lion’s nose. “No wait, don’t answer that, of course you have sensors _duh_ …”

Blue Lion releases a series of huffs, like breathy laughter with an echo of seagulls crying out, as he lowers his neck and tilts his nose downward to roll Matt off onto the floor. Matt tucks himself into a neat ball and rolls forward, stretching his legs out when he leaves the warm metal behind and lands perfectly on his feet with a flourish. With his arms extending above his head, he spins on his heel and bows ninety degrees forward to Blue Lion, as though thanking a crowd for their standing ovation. Blue Lion releases another series of huffs, nudging Matt with his nose. Just as Matt flaps a hand to swat the giant space robot cat away, Blue Lion inches backwards and opens his mouth, the gangway dropping down from the middle of his bottom lip in front of Matt.

Matt stills, his hand frozen in place in mid flap, staring at the open entrance to Blue Lion. He shakes his head, slowly inching backwards until a rumble with an undertone of annoyance from Blue Lion halts him in his tracks. He continues to stare as Blue Lion’s eyes flicker and a holographic word projects right in front of his face.

_‘Come.’_

The hologram fizzles out and Matt finds himself staring straight into Blue Lion’s open mouth. Blue Lion doesn’t move, but a ghostly echo of a song of the sea coaxes him to move forward. With all the hesitance in the universe, he inches forward, the muscles in his body wound tight and ready to flee at a moment’s notice. He reaches forward as he comes just to the front of Blue Lion’s entrance, resting his hand against the warm metal of the Lion’s lips and tilts his head up, and although he cannot see Blue Lion’s eyes from where he is, Matt can feel an encouraging, cool feeling nudge race through his body.

 _Bite the bullet_ , his mind urges when Matt momentarily closes his eyes.

So he does, mentally apologizing to Hunk for going back on his words.

Matt hears Blue Lion’s mouth click shut behind him as he makes his way to the cockpit. A cool draft encompasses him as he stands behind the pilot seat, drinking in the sight of the whole cockpit as the cool draft urges him forward to sit. He feels the cool air swirling around him, gentle and inviting, as he finally steps over and sits onto the pilot seat that automatically adjusts forward for him to reach the controls, consoles and pedals. Matt takes a moment to gaze at the consoles, then to the flight control sticks. A soothing purr from Blue Lion makes him steel himself and he reaches forward to grasp the flight controls.

A blink later, he’s sitting on warm sands in front of waves gently crashing against the surf that only barely misses his feet. Somewhere above his head, the echoes of seagulls crying out bounces about the shell of his ears and when he takes in a deep breath, he smells the refreshing scent of salt and ocean invade his senses. He presses his hands down on the ground, feeling the mixture of smooth and rough texture of the little grains beneath him and tilts his head up to the clear blue skies, eyes shining and full of wonder, to revel in the gentle breeze that ruffles through his hair. For that moment, he thinks of Earth and the beach he’d once gone to with his family on one summer vacation, and of a home by the ocean surrounded with the echoes of shrieking children and tinkling laughter.

His eyes snap open and his muscles stiffen when a purr beside him breaks him from his reverie. Turning to the creature lying beside him, an actual flesh and blood, breathing lion that was bigger than he was with sharp yellow eyes and glossy blue fur, Matt blinks and relaxes his shoulders. Tentatively, he reaches out toward the what he assumes is Blue Lion’s flesh form, and his fingers dance on the edges of the smooth, glossy fur before sinking down into it and presses against warm flesh. Blue Lion rumbles appreciatively, shifting so that Matt’s hand moves up through the thick fur of his neck and finally rests the top of his head. Matt easily cards his hand through the fur, stroking Blue Lion as he purrs and basks in the gentle warmth of the sun. The mixture of the balmy breeze, warm sun and melodic crash of the waves lull Matt into a light doze and he leans sideways to rest against Blue Lion’s comfortable warmth. They stay this way for a while until Blue Lion rumbles, tail flicking with the end catching the back of Matt’s head lightly before shifting and stretching his limbs like a housecat then nudges Matt’s cheek with his warm nose. With a huff and a jerk of his head that is oddly human-like, Blue Lion begins walking down the beach on the edge of the surf, leaving pawprints in the sand and stops in his tracks to look back at Matt, rumbling loud enough for Matt to hear above the crashing waves. Blue Lion huffs and paws the sand impatiently when Matt doesn’t move to stand.

Slowly, he rises and follows the Blue Lion down the surf. The lion slows to a trot beside Matt, rumbling soothingly and rubs his cheek against Matt’s when Matt tries to question him on their destination. The beach seems to go on for miles, brown sand dotting with white against blue ocean and blue sky, but the brightness in the sky begins to fade fast just a few scant minutes into their walk, painting the sky in delightful hues of orange, blue, pink, purple, teal and white. Even when the moon and stars wink down on them and lights their path, Blue Lion urges him to continue down the surf.

A gentle blue light appears in the horizon in front of him, pulsing softly. Matt quickens his pace, Blue Lion easily matching his stride as they come closer to the light. _There’s someone there_ , his mind screams as he breaks into a run; Bathing in the dull blue light, a body lies on the ground where water meets sand with legs submerged in water as the waves crash up to the head. Reaching the unmoving body, Matt hooks his arms under the armpits of the lanky boy and hauls him up the beach away from the water’s edge. Blue Lion merely trots along and watches Matt as he lowers the body gently onto the ground and catches his breath, but Matt finds his breath stolen from him when he kneels beside the body and finally takes notice of whom he’d pulled from the water.

There is no mistaking Lance Espinosa. How could he with all the visits he makes to the Memorial with or without Katie, Hunk or Coran? Tanned skin, sharp chin, short brown hair, tall, lanky, broad shoulders, well-toned legs. Matt immediately swoops down to press his fingers against the cold skin of Lance’s neck, expression twisting into misery when he doesn’t feel the steady pulse beneath his fingertips. He looks up to Blue Lion, who slinks over to the other side of Lance’s head, and stares at the lion.

“Why did you bring me here? Why… _how_ , can Lance’s body be here?”

Blue Lion rumbles, bowing his head and noses Lance’s cold cheek before lifting his head back up to nose at Matt’s.

“I don’t get it.”

Then, the dull blue light that pulses weakly around Lance’s body begins to fade and a blue glow creeps up Matt’s fingers where they remain touching Lance’s neck. In a fit of panic, he tries to wretch his hand away from Lance’s neck, only to have Blue Lion lean forward and rest a paw on his hand to prevent him from moving. As the light fades away completely from Lance’s body, the blue glow intensifies and spreads over Matt’s. Sounds of laughing children, splashing water and the cries of seagulls ring in his head as an image of a house by the beach appears in his head for a split second. When the glow fully envelopes him, Blue Lion purrs, nuzzling Matt’s cheek with startling gentleness as a globe of blue light flashes in his hand, and the blue bayard appears when it fades. A quiet whisper ghosts his ears as the wind ruffles through his hair.

_“Take care of them.”_

And Matt’s eyes fly open when a sudden explosion rocks the castle. He jumps in the pilot seat, head whipping around as he gasps for breath and drops the item from his hand onto the floor with a loud clatter. A calm, soothing purr reverberates in his head and the wild thumping of his heart slows. He yelps when the floor beneath him quakes and rumbles, and then Blue Lion activates, bathing the entire cockpit in bright blue light and the communication channel flares to life.

Static filled shouts fly around Blue Lion’s cockpit. The roar of explosions, cursing, orders, screams of others’ names, gasps of pain, sassy remarks, sarcastic quips. It’s a gigantic garbling mess of communications that Matt can’t make heads or tails with.

Until he hears a particularly nasty explosion and Pidge screaming for Hunk.

He releases his grip on the flight controls and his heart leaps up into his throat. Blue Lion purrs in his head again as a cool sensation sweeps through his body as though telling him to relax. The screen blinks to life, the door of the hanger bay leading to outside staring at him, and suddenly, uncertainty grips onto Matt and seizes his muscles.

_‘Have trust. Have faith.’_

Matt jerks straight up, looking around the cockpit as the voice, high but definitely masculine, whispers soothingly in his mind.

_‘We are gentle. We are loyal. Have trust and have faith my Paladin; I will never lead you astray.’_

Part of him wants to reject the familiar sounding whisper, that he isn’t Blue Paladin material, but the other swells with _desire_ , the desire to help, to _do_. But he has no idea how to pilot a giant robot space cat. Blue Lion purrs again with an echo of crashing waves intermingling with his next words.

_‘Have no fear my Paladin, I am here to guide you.’_

Waves of calm and soothing coolness spreads over him. His uncertainly fades, losing its grip over him and his muscles loosen, shoulders relaxing from their stiff position. Matt breathes slow and calm, eyes closing to revel in the gentle coolness of Blue Lion envelope him as the lion purrs with a subtle note of glee. He opens himself to him, welcomes Blue Lion with open arms and feels the coils of energy, excitement, playfulness, and love from the lion spread to him through their connection.

After all, Blue Lion has done nothing to warrant any distrust.

“I trust you.”

Matt looks down to his side to see the blue bayard lying innocently on the floor. Reaching down and grabbing it, he stares at it then rests it onto his belt before reaching out to the flight controls. He firms up his grip on the flight controls as Blue Lion stands up tall and proud and rears on his hind legs to release a powerful roar that resounds through the space of the hanger bay. When the doors slide open to the blackness of space with speckles of fast moving and flashing lights, Matt can’t help but release a whoop of excitement, Blue Lion’s own mingling alongside with his when the lion bounces on his toes in time with his whoop.

And when they blast out of the Castle’s hanger bay right into the fray of the battle, introducing themselves with an ice beam that freezes a cluster of fighter jets gunning straight for the prone Yellow Lion, Matt feels his jigsaw piece that fits into the puzzle that is Voltron click into place.

 

**~*~**

 

Exhaustion clings onto his being like a petulant child demanding for attention as Blue guides him to fly him back into the Castle’s shared hanger bay behind the other four lions. Matt takes his time to maneuver the giant robot and follows the gentle guiding nudges from Blue to land him safely into the hanger bay without major problems. Once they touch down, he sags in the pilot seat, almost as though boneless, closing his eyes as Blue purrs proudly in his mind.

**“What the fuck is he doing in Blue?!”**

Matt winces as Blue’s internal speakers blast out the Red Paladin’s shout, and opens his eyes to see the Paladins clad in their armor, the Alteans and his dad gathering outside of Blue’s particle barrier from the screen. The uncertainty is clear in Allura and Shiro’s faces, while Pidge’s expression morphs between disbelief, anger and sadness, and rage twists Keith’s face into the ugliest of expressions as he continues hurling expletives upwards towards the cockpit and demands at Matt to ‘get the fuck out of Blue’—and Matt thought _Iverson_ had the ugliest of the ugliest range of expressions.

(Blue releases a snort of amusement in his head and Matt wonders if Lance shared with Blue the many ugly expressions of Iverson. The answering purr and range of images of said commander of the Garrison that appear in his head makes Matt internally, and fervently, declare Lance his new hero, and he has to fight very, _very_ hard not to laugh out loud when Blue includes Lance’s snarky comments to accompany some of the images of expressions.)

In comparison to their comrades, Hunk and Coran are calm with brows tilting downwards in a sad way as they look up into the optics of Blue with soft, sad smiles. His father has a more neutral calm to him, and is likewise staring up to the eyes of the lion.

Suddenly, Keith’s rampage mutes and Matt looks about the cockpit as Blue rumbles—was that a disapproving note in there? Matt peers to the screen and swipes the controls to bring up a window of a close-up of the team crowding outside of the particle barrier; the other lions, to Matt’s amazement, seem to be coming up from behind the other Paladins to stare straight at Blue. He feels a sharp cold breeze pass through his body as Blue dims the lights in the cockpit, but the cockpit doors remain shut when Matt struggles to his feet and staggers to the door to try to get out. Matt leans against the wall, breathing heavily, but still manages to press his palm against the frame of the door with a smile.

“…You know I’m going to have to go down and face them some time, right?”

Blue rumbles again, this time with a note of worry.

“If I promise I won’t let Angry Bird get a hit on me, will you let me go down there?”

A scoff.

“…that’s not what you’re worried about?”

Another rumble.

“Yea, I’m a little tired, but I’m not going to fall over. Don’t worry about it _Blu_ , I’ll be fine.”

A huff and finally, the cockpit door slides open. Matt laughs softly as he pushes himself away from the wall and stumbles out.

“I’m not going to face plant on the floor.”

Thankfully, Matt doesn’t trip on his way out of Blue and finds it blissfully silent when he stumbles out. But even after exiting the lion, the particle barrier doesn’t drop.

“Seriously?” Matt groans while Blue lowers his head down and shifts his paw to cover Matt from the prying eyes of their audience. “Come on _Blu_ , let me out.”

Blue rumbles down at him, before lifting his head to growl towards the others standing outside of the particle barrier. Matt hears a huff with a tone of surprise coming from one of the other lions, and Shiro’s voice pierces through the silence.

“Black says Blue will only take her barrier down if we promise we’re not going to jump Matt the moment she takes it down.”

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?!”

“I’m pretty sure she means you and Pidge Keith; you _have_ been cursing Matt out for the last few minutes and Pidge—”

“Pidge looks pretty constipated right now…”

“…I know where you sleep Hunk.”

“That actually stopped being a scary thought months ago because, you know, we’ve been staying in the same castle space ship for almost two years.”

“Well _I’m_ not promising anything!”

Blue growls and shifts to curl around Matt, blocking his view completely with his backside facing the Voltron crew.

“…Is Blue butt saluting us?”

Matt dissolves into a fit of laughter.

“Oh my god  _Blu_ , don’t go asshole cat on them!” He croaks out between laughs, leaning heavily against his paw while Blue makes a sound like a haughty sniff. “Come on. I can’t stay here forever.”

He soon realizes that Blue is serious with his demand, staunchly refusing to lower his shields until the Paladins and Alteans make the promise. _Each_. His dad, Coran and Hunk have no issues making the promise to Blue on the spot when Blue, still covering Matt with his paws but not stopping him from crawling up said paw to look over to the team, turns his head around to glare at the Paladins. Shiro and Allura easily follow their lead while Pidge struggles, bleating out to Blue in exasperation that she wasn’t going to _maim_ her own brother, but when Blue turns his head away from her with an unamused growl, she makes the promise.

Only Keith remains silent, lips sealed together in a thin line as he glares at them with eyes blazing with angry defiance. Blue in turn growls lowly at him, with a note of unhappiness that resonates deeply in Matt’s chest, and stubbornly keeps his barrier up. While the voices of the other Paladins and the Princess bounce about the hanger bay as they attempt to cajole Keith into making the promise to Blue, Matt’s knees give way and he stumbles backwards, sliding off Blue’s paw and lands on his butt hard onto the floor. Blue rumbles, head turning away from the Paladins and lowers toward Matt, nudging him gently as a wave of exasperation full of ‘I told you so’ washes over Matt. He absently swats at the lion, grumbling under his breath. The cajoling becomes a shouting match and feet begin stomping loudly on the floor that echoes in the hanger bay; Matt winces when Shiro’s demanding ‘I-am-the-leader-you-need-to-obey-me’ tone lashes out, bellowing Keith’s name and the stomping ceases.

“You have to let it go Keith! We knew Blue was going to choose another Paladin sooner or later!”

“Well she shouldn’t have to!”

“ _Keith_.” Shiro sucks in a deep breath, aggravation clear within this one breath. “Where is this coming from? You were fine, and you didn’t have any problems with Matt before—”

“Because I fucking _avoid_ him!”

 “—So why this? I thought you moved past it already.” Shiro exhales noisily, weary. “We need a Blue Paladin. Voltron—”

“We’re _not_ Voltron without Lance!” Keith’s roar reverberates through the hanger bay, and Matt sees Blue’s shoulders hunch forward, flattening his metal body against the floor as Keith rages. “I’m doing my best to move past Allura’s bullshit, but there’s no fucking way I’ll accept _him_ as the Blue Paladin! We barely know him! Lance is _our_ Blue Paladin, _no one_ can take his place!”

“I know that! I know that no one can replace Lance, but we need a Blue Paladin!” Shiro shouts, the frustration in his voice chills Matt’s blood and a sense of foreboding washes over him. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this! If it were Hunk, I’d understand because they were childhood friends, but you never got along with Lance!”

 _SHIRO. NO!_ Matt’s brain screeches as he feebly flaps towards Blue’s paw and tries to pull himself up to his feet. His emotionally stupid friend was starting a fire right in front of a ticking bomb of feels. He knows he’s not going to be able to stop it, but he would get _up_ , damnit, to try doing damage control even if said bomb wanted to blow him up to smithereens. But instead of an explosion, a tense silence befalls the hanger bay and once Matt pulls himself over Blue’s paw—Blue remains lying on his belly the whole time with his chin to the floor, releasing a quiet rumble of sadness that pierces Matt’s heart—he sees the rest of the Voltron team surrounding Keith and Shiro with various degrees of shock and unease written over their faces. Keith’s fists are clenched tightly by his sides as he glares hotly at Shiro, a glare so hot Matt swears that Keith could fire lasers from his eyes, who has his arms crossed over his chest with tense and stiff shoulders, eyes meeting the Red Paladin’s fiery glare without fear.

“…Right.” Keith’s shoulders slump and his fists uncurl to lay limp by his sides as a laugh, high with a note of hysteria, rushes out from his lips. “Right. We never got along. I don’t have a right to get angry that you’re replacing him. I don’t have a right to not accept a new Blue Paladin because I never got along with the last one, right? Because I’m not close enough to him to have a right to be angry.”

“Keith, that’s not—”

“ _I get it_. I don’t have a right to be angry that Blue chose a new Paladin. That’s why it’s pointless to get close to anyone because everyone just _leaves_ and because I don’t ‘get along’ enough with them I’m not allowed to be angry—”

Matt hauls himself towards the group, leaning heavily against the blue barrier as he stumbles forward. Keith is still spewing his word vomit, tearing through Shiro’s flimsy attempts to cut him off while the rest keep their distance from the duo with faces full of unease. He can hear Blue’s joints creaking and looks to his back to see him turn his head to stare at him. Matt mouths ‘please’, pressing his hand harder against the rippling energy barrier, and almost topples over when the barrier suddenly vanishes beneath his fingertips. He looks up to meet his father’s eyes and when the older man tilts his head, Matt ploughs through the exhaustion that riddles through his body and makes his way towards Keith, who looks ready to spin on his heel to stomp away. The moment Keith spins on his heel, back facing Shiro, Matt surges forward and grabs a hold of Keith’s bicep, halting him from moving away and uses him to stabilize his footing.

Keith looks ready to throw him off, but Matt tightens his grip.

“I don’t know what Lance is to you and I don’t know what kind of relationship you guys had, but I’m sure it’s not any less meaningful just because you guys didn’t ‘get along’ and I’m sorry if you feel like I’m replacing him.”

Matt shoots Shiro an evil glare as he grits his teeth and Keith’s muscles tense in Matt’s grip.

“But I’m not Lance, and I’m never _going to be_ him.” He continues firmly, releasing Keith’s bicep. “I’d also really appreciate if you didn’t treat me like him too, because it sounds like you were unnecessarily rough on the guy. I’m not here to fill in his empty shoes; I’m going to work with you guys in my own shoes.”

“You’re not _our_ Blue Paladin!”

“I’m not your Blue Paladin.” Matt readily agrees, expression somber as Keith’s expression twists into shock. He jerks his head in the direction of Blue. “I’m his.”

Matt hears Blue rumble somewhere closely behind him just as a spell of dizziness hits him. His vision blurs and the world suddenly tilts on its side as he desperately tries to blink his eyes back to clarity. He can feel the vibration of a muted roar behind him and blurry figures racing towards him. As his vision darkens, the image of the house by the beach appears in his head once more, this time with people milling between the beach and the house. The laughter of children rings in his ears, then mutes until the same ghostly voice, eerily similar to Blue’s, whispers into his ears.

_‘Take him home.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang in there folks, we're almost at the finish line!
> 
> Hope you've enjoyed the read!

**Author's Note:**

> Have I been kicked out yet? d._.b


End file.
